How Chinese illustrator Carina Zhang is healing people through her art

Carina Zhang has already used art to help traumatised children. Now she wants to focus on psychotherapy and teach creative skills to disadvantaged groups

She was a winner of the most recent L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest and says Oscar-winning Australian illustrator Shaun Tan inspires her

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Chinese illustrator Carina Zhang, a winner of the most recent L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest, says she is now digging deeper into the therapeutic aspects of art and storytelling. Photo: Carina Zhang

Published: 6:15pm, 21 Apr 2024

During her schooldays in Beijing, Carina Zhang spent hours doodling in her notebooks, creating a fantastical world of colourful characters.

“My friend and I would draw creatures that people could ‘adopt’ and ‘buy’ food for – it was like a shop in a notebook,” Zhang says. “Obviously, I wasn’t paying attention to my work.”

Now 21, Zhang continues to tap her wild imagination.

She landed in the US in 2021, where she is currently honing her skills at the Rhode Island School of Design, one of America’s oldest and most prestigious art colleges, whose famous alumni include filmmaker Gus Van Sant, artist Shepard Fairey and actor Seth MacFarlane.

What of this Goldfish Would You Wish by Carina Zhang. Photo: Carina Zhang

But she says that after arriving in the country, her excitement soon soured when she was caught up in the wave of anti-Asian hate that surged amid the coronavirus pandemic. She retreated into her art.

“I felt lonely when I moved to the US,” says Zhang via video call from the US. “I was struggling and kept asking myself, ‘How can I make friends? How can people better understand me?’”