Today we’d like to introduce you to Hanyu Mu.
Hi Hanyu, 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 have loved drawing since I was a child, and I have been scribbling on the walls since I was 2 or 3 years old. Later, I entered an art high school to receive systematic study and was finally able to express my world independently with a paintbrush. As I grew up, I was exposed to the influence of Japanese, European, and American anime and manga works while learning about art. I became interested in anime, games, and illustration works. A person’s horizon determines how far they can go. When I learned about the broader world of art and discovered that there were so many artists with similar ideas creating works that I admired, I worked hard to enter the animation major in university, wanting to have the ability to show my ideas. After four years of studying animation in university and creating my animation works, I gradually defined my favorite art style and realized that I wanted to be closer to the artistic environment I wanted to be in. So I came to the US to study illustration. Illustration and animation have a lot in common, and my previous studies in animation also inspired me to create illustrations. From animation to illustration, and from my hometown to studying abroad, my family and friends have been very supportive of my decision to pursue an artistic path, even though it does not have a fixed evaluation standard and cannot be described as a stable and long-lasting career. I am very grateful to them and also very grateful for the life I have today.
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?
The big changes in my life and studies were challenges that I experienced in my life. As I mentioned earlier, I changed my major from animation to illustration design and left my hometown to live and study in the United States. Although I was accompanied by friends during this process, I had to digest my emotions on my own. In terms of life, I had to adapt to the familiar environment I had lived in for 20 years, both in terms of living habits and language. Although there were many novelties, I had to solve everything by myself, which cultivated my independence. As I continue to hone my personality to become more independent and complete, this will also be shown in my artworks so that my works will not be superficial but have more connotation after deep thinking.
From the perspective of professional learning, the process of switching from animation to illustration is not a smooth one. To people who don’t know the industry, animation and illustration may not seem to be very different, but in the process of creation, I need to change my habits to adapt to the creation of illustration design, both in terms of thinking mode and specific operation. Software is also one aspect, there is constantly new software that needs to be learned, similar to the creation of 2D illustration through 3d assistance, and other new forms are also impacting the industry. Only by constantly updating their knowledge base can they keep up with the times. So that learning is endless, never stop learning is my biggest challenge.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I studied animation at university and then moved to the US to study illustration. During that time, I also tried different art forms such as hand-drawing on paper, electronic board drawing, graphic design, animation video creation, and so on. I finally decided that I wanted to become an illustrator. In my opinion, it’s all about experimentation. Only after trying all the types of art that I am interested in can I find the path that suits me. Like my illustration work, it is perhaps different from the so-called orthodox illustration genre that pursues delicate techniques and grand scenes. Most of my inspiration comes from my memories of growing up. Not necessarily a specific event, some hazy feeling, even the weather, smell, air humidity, etc.
I can still remember the images of that time years later. I used to record my life with quick sketches, maybe the composition or lines of the picture are not precisely calculated, but the record of the present moment is the part I look for, which is also reflected in my illustration works. The messy lines and spontaneous color arrangement make up my illustration creation. I want to impress the audience with the feelings contained in the picture more than the technical elaboration. Not everyone may be able to understand the meaning of each specific graphic and the cultural background behind it, but if I can make everyone feel the feelings I want to express, that’s a success for me.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am a person who loves to take risks and try new things. All of the things I mentioned earlier are adventures in my opinion. Whether it’s the adventure of coming to a foreign country with a change in living environment, the adventure of starting from scratch in the illustration profession, the adventure of focusing on a creative form of personal emotional expression, or even the adventure of choosing the path of art from the beginning. You only live once, and time is limited. All choices made in a relative amount of time are, in my opinion, risks because there is no chance to do it again. Even if it takes a huge amount of time and effort to start everything over, the time that was spent cannot be returned, and the feeling of starting over must not be equal to that of the first contact. Thus the irreversibility of life is the biggest adventure in my opinion. This is why I love to record the present moment.
Everything happens only once, and one cannot step into the same river. Even if you have the same breakfast every morning, you can’t have the same taste of the omelette as this morning. Therefore, I need to record this morning’s omelette with a brush. People may think that taking pictures is the same function, but for me, the smell of the omelette, the friction of the brush on the paper, and the smoke in the air during the painting process will stay in my memory. It is as if time has been stretched out in slow motion. It will stay in my memory, and the growth and accumulation from the adventure will be used as inspiration in my work in the future. That’s why I love to experiment.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.hanyumu.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hany_umu/
