We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ada Shen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ada below.

Ada, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

For the past half year I all of a sudden found myself deep into silkscreen printing through my undergrad course at art school. For my own reasons and schedule, I had to twist and turn and switch a course form silkscreen book-making class to another more open-ended one. The bookmaking choice was made earlier, when I thought I could continue my book/zine making path as I did it before. The change to a general silkscreen making course was honestly not my top choice. However, its open-endedness and freedom that came with it turns out to be a great opportunity for me to build a new and exciting body of work that is different from what I do earlier, when I was a sophomore student, have just tried a few things, made displayable works yet not totally sure or satisfied to continue the then comfortable artmaking process. My new body of work is a vibrant array of silkscreen portrait/posters of faux mythological figures and creatures in just pure metaphysical planes of color, striding, riding, floating, parading… occupying their space. These figures and the ambiguous stories behind them, that I imagine and conjure up as I make these images, contain my interest in mythology and archaic memories shared pan-culturally. I also look at science and nature for inspiration. My drawing work contain far more influences from the sciences. To me it is like how historically and anthropologically science/ rational thinking and wishful, symbolic, spiritual thinking has always been closer than one thinks because they are just different ways human has always used to perceive and understand the objective world around us. When I get a chance and freedom in telling the visual stories I want, I naturally turn to them, and try to bridge the two side of a coin with playfulness and captivating images.

Ada, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Based in New York, I am an emerging illustrator, Risographer, printmaker and a Bio-art enthusiast studying at the School of Visual Arts. My work and exploration often center around biology and natural science inspired motifs, as well as myths and memory. I put my voice through illustrations, self-publishing and printmaking. I am an active participant of bookfairs— for me a great way to take what I make and reach to a wider audience. In the past, I have tabled at the East Village Zine Fair by Printed Matter, Boston Art Book Fair, Stilllife Art Book Fair, Rehearsal Art Book Fair by Bungee Space and Accent Sisters, and displayed and sold risograph works at Sound about RISO exhibition organized by Lucky Risograph.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I genuinely felt that the constant exploration and creativity is also a journey towards understanding myself, knowing what I like and feeling certain of what I want to do. Obvious as it may sound, but one’s work contains one’s story—my work is telling of me, and it is hard to lie to myself when it is about working in the creative field. The “style” people put so much emphasis is to me based on self-knowledge and exploration through working. I won’t be able to achieve it by forcing myself to work a certain way, limit myself or imitate others. My work is my existence and anchorage in this world. I am grateful of this feeling, a ‘reward’ I didn’t anticipate when I was my younger self, starting to doodle on pages and amateurly expressing.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Books of images are very close to me, on one hand I collect them because I myself do a bit of independent publishing, on the other hand I like finding images in books through the turning of the pages. While I was creating this silkscreen series, I encountered Charles Fréger’s photography from Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage. These enigmatic images of figures in costumes, masks and fur are a reflection of humanity’s everlasting intrigue to mythology, echoing with my interest. In recent years the book Science Illustration. A History of Visual Knowledge from the 15th Century to Today published by Taschen became a great source of inspiration and reference of images in the sciences to me, that I always have it by my side.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://adazshen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ada_zshen/

Image Credits
all images belong to Ada Z Shen