Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Angela Lian. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Angela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Ever since I was a child, I followed every creative impulse to make and move. My free time was spent drawing and crafting or dancing and doing gymnastics in the living room. I didn’t know these two paths would cross until middle school, which was the dawn of social media for me. At the time I was a competitive gymnast and just beginning to understand digital creation. During the summer of 2012, I started an Instagram account under the handle @Instagymnastdancers to feature gymnasts and dancers around the world as well as to create photo edits for them. This was my introduction to graphic design. The account grew pretty extensively and I realized how much I enjoyed blending my two passions, moving and making. My creative intuition many years ago led me to a professional practice where these identities coexist and inform each other in my work, both personal and commercial.

Angela, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a Chinese and Taiwanese American artist and designer based in Hudson Valley, New York. My work ranges from conventional visual identities to printed matter and video. I’m currently a graphic designer at BAGGU, which ironically enough, also stemmed from a different social media endeavor on TikTok under the identity, Back Pain Baby. My personal art practice is rooted in playful movement, video art, and analog techniques. I’ve been fortunate enough to have my work recognized by It’s Nice That, TYPE01, and AIGA Eye On Design.

Something I’d like people to know about me is that I’m constantly trying to build a creative practice that supports my body. I have lived with chronic back pain and cervical migraines for more than half my life and there is always a push and pull between the work I make and the toll it takes on my body. Therefore, I’m a huge advocate for maintaining creative wellbeing. Because in the end, we can get money back but not time. Movement is so central to my practice because it’s an attempt at balancing the negative effects I experience while sitting at my computer or with my sketchbook. It becomes the vehicle for ideas and such an integral part of my creative process.

This past fall, I had my first solo show, Moving Making Moving: Embodied Ecologies at CMA Gallery in Newburgh, NY. I had created a performative contemplation space for dreaming within bodies—human and non-human. The exhibition featured a poster series titled Memory Garden and twelve video art pieces from 2021–2024, alongside two walls of handwritten scores titled Scores for Dreaming. These scores paid homage to the relationships between the human and non-human consciousness of pain, memory, and ecology.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The way it permeates every aspect of life. Creativity is an energy transferable to the ways we make decisions, build relationships, and achieve self actualization. Being an artist is about seeing things differently, and that has helped me move through life with more trust and authenticity. There is a constant tension between staying in the known or jumping into the unknown, and I think being creative is what bridges the gap.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In 2018, I began experiencing debilitating neck pain and cervical headaches in addition to my existing chronic back pain. I was in college at the time studying graphic design and the irony was that I did my best work when in the most pain. The last one and a half years of college were spent in COVID times, which meant a lot more screen time on Zoom and sitting indoors. It did so much damage to my body and I had no idea how I would ever enter the workforce. After graduating, I decided to take a break to travel abroad and it was then that I received my first freelance job. Being a freelance graphic designer showed me how I could be in control of my time and most importantly, my body. This intention to protect my physical wellbeing while working helped me build a better understanding of the conditions I would need to work fulltime. Me in 2018 would have never believed that today I’m working a fulltime remote graphic design job. I’m now able to communicate my boundaries with the pain and tend to my body when the symptoms get really bad.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alian_archives/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-lian-245639163/?msgControlName=view_message_button&msgConversationId=2-M2YyNmM2YzktNGJjMi00NDEyLTk5ZGItM2FiZDMwZjBkNDc0XzAxMg%3D%3D&msgOverlay=true
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alian.archives
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@backpainbaby

Image Credits

Portrait taken by Aileen Lian