Today we’d like to introduce you to Xiao Xu.
Hi Xiao, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in Shanghai, China. I used to live on the first floor of a Shikumen house(the direct translation is “stone warehouse gate”), nestled in an alley. As a kid, my energy does not cease. Every day, my grandma would yell at me to come home for dinner from the kitchen window by the inner alley; and I was always on the move, often finding myself being fed by different neighbors with all kinds of food.
Living in this kind of environment made me a happy and free spirit, despite the cruel fact that my mom enrolled me in all sorts of hobby classes – a common practice among Chinese parents. I bit my dancing teacher after three classes because I did not want the teacher to bend my back; I quit drumming because my neighbors hated my da-dum-da-boom; I flipped the chessboard because I couldn’t win my semi-professional mom – the only so-called hobby that lasted is drawing. I was always doodling, whether it was on the margins of my textbooks, on top of the poets and writers’ photos, or on sticky notes of teachers that I’d fly around in class. Today, I’m so fortunate that what once I used to find who I am when I was a child becomes something that defines who I am.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
However, it isn’t easy to define who you are, right? I remember the first couple of foundation classes I had when I was in my undergrad – we were required to draw hundreds of self-portraits over a mirror that you had to carry every freaking day. You had to take that time to look into yourself, deep into every feature you’d call of yourself, from the maybe wide cheekbone of your face to the moles under my chin. How does it feel to observe yourself so closely and even philosophically? Everyone is different. Remember when you looked into one character for so long, and you don’t recognize that character anymore? That was my feeling – I felt like stumbling upon a stranger. This kind of randomness shrouds my career; at least, till this very moment, it is random to me that I’m speaking about my self-portraits here to you.
Similar to how I felt about drawing myself, I thought it’d be enough to just be good at drawing to become an illustrator and eventually land a job for myself as a children’s book illustrator. The truth is, I could not find a job, at least a full-time one – freelancing is the main market, which itself becomes a totally different game. It wasn’t just about drawing well or thinking differently, but also about networking and self-marketing on all kinds of platforms. Aside from the dream of illustrating children’s books, I had to do illustrations I did not enjoy at all just to sustain my living expenses. What did I do about it? I did nothing and pursued my master’s degree as a prospective graphic designer – that is how much I loathe drawing stuff I couldn’t love, networking with total strangers, and marketing myself. Jokes aside, I did almost finish my graphic design concentration while I was in undergrad, so no, it was not a drastic life event that totally reshaped how I’d continue my life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an illustrator and graphic designer, currently working at a digital agency. My role involves creating content, both in illustration and graphic design, for individual film campaigns and streaming services, including companies like Focus, A24, Pixar, and Disney Plus. I still indulge in some personal doodling of imaginary children’s books by documenting and exaggerating daily trivialities, as well as freelancing projects in a combination of illustration and graphic design – and I think the ambiguity I was able to recognize while I was drawing myself really helped me, till today. It leads me to a faint agenda that I was not aware of before – whether reading into something as I’d call beautiful or ugly, elegant or rough, true or false, I become insistent and resilient towards it, and I stand for it; although, there is no binary answer towards things. What I read is a mixture of all, including my own emotions at that particular moment. I appreciate my ambiguous sensitivity and the sentiments towards cherishing such sensitivity. That is why I’d become a total wreck whenever my clients’ thoughts go south with mine when so much emotion was dedicated to the work. I believe that is a big perk of me, and that is the one perk that carried me on till today.
How do you think about luck?
I consider myself a lucky person, and of course not a lottery-winning type of lucky. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and work with some truly amazing and lovely individuals throughout my life and career – from the laughter shared with classmates over my whimsical recreations of poets and writers to the support of my colleagues over my sometimes brutal honesty. Of course, I also feel lucky enough to not really spend time with networking and self-promotion. Instead, I have great clients approach me directly. See, sometimes it wouldn’t hurt to be a happy and free spirit – everything is about randomness and luck if I’m blindly optimistic enough, right?
Contact Info:
- Website: oaixux.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xiaoxu_art/
