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

Alright, Jasmine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My childhood was different from most. I grew up completely media free through eighth grade, and I am very grateful. As a result I was able to preserve the rich landscape of imagination I had as a child and allow it to evolve without much outside interference. I believe children have been negatively impacted by various forms of media, distracted and disconnected from their innocence, inherent creativity and imagination. Due to my upbringing I still feel very connected to this “pure” space, and it allows me to create from an interiority. Being raised by a Moroccan French father and a Taiwanese American mother (who was raised in Japan), both artists, also opened me to bohemian, multicultural and unconventional worlds, where I have been able to integrate difference in meaningful ways. I feel this has supported my self discovery and inspired the creative life I lead, and the passions I wish to pursue in an open-minded and progressive way.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have been an artist my whole life, evolving since the age of five where I began to draw and paint prolifically. When I was very young my parents sectioned off half of our huge dining table to create an “atelier” for me–vast selections of brushes, paints, pencils, papers and canvases–and soon my drawings covered all the walls of our tiny home. Since this period every phase of my practice has been inspired by a deep connection to art as a method of communication. Painting and drawing are the most fluid and natural forms of self-expression for me. I create images from scenes I see in my mind and feel an urgency to put on paper or canvas. While much of the content of what I create comes to me spontaneously, I am always striving to improve my skill. I enjoy the academic process of technique as much as downloading the visuals.

Attending the art and spiritual based education of Waldorf Schools, from elementary through highschool, was another major factor in the evolution of my art style and life mission. This specific curriculum follows a “no technology/media” philosophy with an emphasis on developing intellectual and artistic skills for young children to explore the full scope of their imagination.

When Covid hit, I chose to complete my senior year independently, taking college courses. This was one of the first steps in exiting the system/institution for me. Upon graduating highschool I had a strong sense that I did not want a conventional college experience and decided to take a gap year. I was accepted to several universities with full scholarships; however, I couldn’t bring myself to commit to this course. Even as it made sense cognitively, intuitively it felt like a strong “no.” Instead, I immersed myself in self study, learning Animation, Character Design and growing my portfolio independently. I am now taking Animation classes from a veteran Disney animator, which I love. I am in charge of my days and the freedom allows me to study my passion with the flexibility to sell my art on my website and etsy, to illustrate children’s stories, design tarot decks and work on all the other projects I wish to create. This spaciousness reminds me of the openness and wonder my parents hoped to preserve for my siblings and me, and it’s really only now as an adult that I can integrate the depth and gratitude of this feeling.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The goal that drives my art is to use media as a positive and generative influence through Animation. I wish to capture the nostalgia of childhood and bring people back to the spirit of wonderment and imagination. I believe mainstream storytelling has lost its innocence and beauty. Materialism and hubris have supplanted true heart-based consciousness, especially in the world of media. I have been deeply inspired by the work of filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki to this end, and I wish to use media and narrative as mediums for global awakening. While Miyazaki’s profound depictions of the condition of the world are exquisitely rendered and generally optimistic, they are also intensely gut-wrenching, complex and gritty. He portrays the real-life devastation and erosion of the planet by humanity and offers illumination to engage themes of spirit, consciousness and awakening, seemingly absent from the state of the world today. From the plummeting of earth’s resources to the poisoning of the soil, the pure destruction of war and the promise of true love, Miyazaki implores a depth of self reflection that I believe can insight agency and change. This is the work I wish to be involved in.

In the technical aspect, I have had a strong conviction to stay with strictly traditional 2D Animation in my art. I am interested in the emotive multidimensionality of 2D images, hand drawing each frame to achieve a kind of magic and human aspect, which can be lost through 3D Animation. While I am open to learning 3D technologies, I wish to create traditional animation. While technology has evolved in industries of Art, Cinematography and Animation greatly, I find media today far too hyper-stimulated, alienating, loud and crass, appealing to jaded and thrill seeking audiences with minimal attention spans, desensitized to depth, self awareness and subtle imagination. I wish to follow in the legacy of animators like Miyazaki and create work that allows others to connect to that place of lost innocence, and generate new forms of consciousness.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I have always been inspired by the esoteric and metaphysical, the unknown and unseen realms. Studying masterpieces of the greats such as Da Vinci to Nikola Tesla have made me realize they were connected to otherworldly intelligence, downloading these secrets to channel into their creations. There are so many mysteries of human capacity, such as the great pyramids, sacred geometry etc. We can find these subjects in literature, oral histories, musings, poetry, myth, and art across millennia, yet we live in a world that valorizes hard science, ego-driven success, external validation, competition, meritocracy, financial wealth and status. This has led me to believe that our evolution as a human race lies in the unknown, and exploring this with reverence and humility is to our collective benefit. Maybe this means we are finally at a place where to move forwards we have to look back and live simply, to explore the ancient traditions of honoring land and not join in the rote colonization of it, to find the connection between valuing deeper living, and healing the planet and each other.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://studioshiouli.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio_shiouli/
• Other: animation account: https://www.instagram.com/studio_shiouli_study/

Image Credits
Jasmine Kuo