“The veiled and poetic subtlety of love between boys”: Yifei Xiang explores the Chinese queer experience

Romance is the subject that illustrator Yifei Xiang has always been most creatively captivated by — “especially the sad stories”, he tells us. Although there wasn’t a singular moment in the artist’s journey that spurred a clear focus on the subject, he has always found that the whole world of love and relationships busies his creative mind. Within it, he has discovered an intersection between “poetry and realism” that has taught him to “convert the subtle details within emotions into art”, feeling all the bigger feelings and understand himself more along the way.

The illustrator is capturing the sentimental subject through his very own lens: “I like to document and portray relationships between men; in some way I see it as part of my responsibility as a gay artist,” he says. “Rather than communicating the most intense and powerful moments, I prefer to show the veiled and poetic subtlety of love between boys. This has been shaped by my background and the nature of the Chinese queer experience.”

As for the style of his textured, angular drawings, Yifei finds his influences within brutalist architecture and its “minimalist geometry” — an inspiration clear to see in his illustrated scenes, whether his characters are depicted in colourful patchwork cities or natural landscapes. These signature squarish shapes originally started through the use of analogue techniques and materials such as watercolour, pastel and pencil sketches. However, over the years, he has found a lot of versatility in digital tools like Procreate to craft the building blocks of his illustrated worlds. “I love to experiment with different digital effects and textures to accompany my drawings.”