Ruohan Wang's chaotic, captivating illustrations

Two years ago, illustrator Ruohan Wang’s drawings and animations opened the door to a parallel universe filled with cute figures busily employed in scene after charming scene. Take a look at her Instagram page now and you’ll find a colour-soaked portal into sensory overload. Her characters are still there, but pastels are swapped for eye-wateringly vivid brights.

Last year, Ruohan graduated from Berlin University of the Arts, and since then, the Berlin-based creative hasn’t taken her foot off the gas. “This March I held my own exhibition in Ministerium fuer Illustration in Berlin, where my animated and print works were displayed. Besides occasionally attending a few live, new media festivals, most of my time is still spent working on creative painting and on printing,” Ruohan tells It’s Nice That. “This September I was invited by the Migrant Bird Space Gallery to display and sell some of my big paintings and audio visual installations.

Currently, Ruohan is focused on “printing, painting, and audio visual installations while receiving some commissions,” the illustrator explains. “It may sound a little bit much but in my opinion they all relate to each other,” she says. “I’d rather be an artist who is not limited to only a few methods, and also one who never stops learning about new techniques.”

Her finest work-related moment of 2017, Ruohan tells us, was a commission from a Korean agency. “My favourite work of art this year was when I was asked to create an illustration based on the idea of ‘a trip in Berlin’ by a Korean Agency. A funny story is that this March I moved to a new apartment, which is located across from the Berlin Moabit Prison. When I first saw the facility I thought it was a school because I saw they had a playground in the field. After a few days I found out it was a prison,” she explains. “It made me feel more like an artist and I felt I had to draw it. I wanted to capture the everyday life of Berlin. I didn’t want to just illustrate famous building or objects; I wanted to show something special. I choose things that I am familiar with to show my personal Berlin. For this illustration and the project, although set in realism, elements of surrealism were added as is my style. Maybe it’s because this project had a direct relation to my personal life, but I really enjoyed working on it.”