Life in plastic, it’s fantastic: Sisi Kim’s playful 3D illustrations are far from disposable

Most creatives have a few reasons as to why they chose their preferred medium. For Sisi Kim, it’s a love of all things plastic looking. Gravitating to 3D illustration for its ability to best represent the key characteristics of the material – “lightness, playfulness and colour” – Sisi’s work may be bold and bright, but it certainly isn’t disposable. Inspired by lighthearted subject matter, like internet memes, childhood toys and 90s pop art, Sisi also interacts with more serious issues, like the impending climate crisis.

In A Messy Day – a brilliantly hectic, apocalyptic piece – Sisi compares the frustration of discarded chewing gum and climate change. “As seemingly trivial as gum sticking to our feet, climate change seems ignorable and irritating, but it keeps influencing our lives and is becoming something increasingly hard to be resolved,” the illustrator explains. In another recent project, Too Cute to Just Be Plastic, Sisi depicted 100 plastic objects in her charming style, immortalising the items and challenging our tendency to throw things away. While Sisi’s may be one of the funnest portfolios we’ve come across recently, it also packs a powerful punch with an undercurrent of social commentary.