Life & Work with Mia Chai of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mia Chai

Hi Mia, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve filled the pages of my life with my drawings. When I was young, I became inspired from comic books that my brother got sent to our house every month. I became enamoured with them and eventually generated a style that was uniquely my own. As a teenager, I began to classically study fine arts and solidify my technical skills to properly facilitate my vision. As I moved on to college, I still studied fine arts to a degree, but my main focus became graphic design and illustration as I saw it as a more practical way for me to be able to bring artistry into my life moving forward. Doing one or the other ultimately never felt right and I began to make my way by combining elements from all mediums I had learned from to implement a style that was uniquely my own.

I was a very sensitive and shy child, so art became an outlet to express my inner world, which I struggled to make sense of. For me, art is not a calling, or something to do, but an integral part of my being that I could not live without. Being an artist is an inherently spiritual act. To be an artist is to be an alchemist. To do so allowed me to transmute emotions that had been deemed “unacceptable” by those around me growing up. Originally, my art provided me with a source to tap into my inner world. It started as an escape from everything around me that I felt like I would never be able to properly integrate with, and slowly became something that I couldn’t imagine separating myself from. For me, it became an integral way to decipher and break down the masks that I had worn since childhood. It was the only medium that would allow me to explore the juxtaposition and contradictions that I had created around my self identity.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have always been hypersensitive to the world around me, and as an artist, it has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it is what makes my art so deep and resonate with so many people. However, I am highly susceptible to creative blocks and long periods of burnout. I have struggled with my mental health for most of my life, and it has made it difficult to balance creating because so often, I am just focused on trying to survive. It made it almost impossible for me to continue schooling, and there are many periods of my life where I became cut off from my artistic lifeforce. And after the passing of my father in the last days of 2021, I didn’t paint for almost two and a half years. During that time, I was so consumed with grief and had become numb to the world around me to cope. Because of this, I had severed my connection to self, and therefore, my connection to my artistry. Ultimately, an artist cannot create something real unless they know themselves fully, and are comfortable with the shadows that other people would hide away. So after heartbreak after heartbreak, I dedicated myself to once again uncovering the aspects of myself that I had hidden away. Through shadow work, I began to realize the connectivity of spirituality and creativity. By dedicating myself to one, I was able to regain touch with the other and finally transmute the lingering feeling and leftover energy that had been trapped in my body. Being a painter saved me in the truest sense of the word.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a painter and illustrator that specializes in oil painting and digital art. While my styles for both tend to significantly differ, I do enjoy combining them for a juxtaposed look. I’m most known for my vibrant use of my overall color schemes, which primarily includes purple, blue, pink, and black. When I first started painting, I did not realize this, I now understand that I am so attracted to this color palette due to the spiritual connotations of each color and their corresponding chakra they are often associated with (purple=crown, blue/indigo=third eye, pink/green=heart). There are the energies that I am the most personally connected with, and it often leads to me having a completely different interpretation of my work than I intentionally set out to. It is often a delve into concepts that I had been repressing, and therefore make themselves known through my work.
I think one aspect that I am strong in, is my ability to pour visible emotions into my work. Breaking perfectionism is something that we as artists often struggle with, but I’ve been able to make peace with it by shifting my focus from that and focusing on pouring myself into my work. This shift made me embrace imperfection as something beautiful and proof of the human experience. To make perfect art is a contradiction and is hardly the point. My aim is for my audience to gain the same type of introspection and clarity that I have received through creating each piece. My goal as an artist is to raise our collective consciousness by activating hidden emotions and shadows of my viewers and initiating them into self-reflection. I hope my art shows the beauty in the darkness, and to not be afraid or demonize it. It is a part of each of us, and deserves to be acknowledged. This is the only way to bring internal balance and this is the core of every work I create.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Due to the rise of AI and the general homogenization of art due to trends in the recent years, I feel that the focus in the next few years will be a return to raw, authentic, and deeply “weird” art. The people will begin to gravitate toward the idea of imperfection in the arts. Society has been so focused on perfection in a false attempt to avoid increasing crucifixion on the internet, as people become more disillusioned and more critical due to the increasing hardship we are becoming forced to normalize. Due to this, I do see there being a breaking point, and frankly I am already starting to see, where people are becoming sick of trends and the imitations and more importantly, bored of it. This is allowing for a new wave of artists to be ushered in and embraced for their vulnerability. There will be a move away from more clean, simple styles, as well as hyper-realism, and a focus on surrealist imagery and fantastical colors. There will be an emphasis on the feeling a piece invokes in a person and less on the social currency or overall “aesthetic” that an artwork adds to a person’s identity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mchjcdesign.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miasma.cc/?hl=en
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/miasmacc https://www.tiktok.com/@miasma.cc

Image Credits
Narek Petrosyan @gnarwreck
Jaycee Alcala @jayceelalcala