There’s a lot of emotion in your work. Where does that come from?

My relationship with psychology or ideas around mental health began early because my parents are psychologists. But, personally, I suffered from depression and anxiety. You don’t ever get cured, and that’s why I see art as a valuable tool for processing emotion; you can’t have a therapist with you for the rest of your life, but you can have creation, and creation on your own time. I think it’s important for people to work through things on their own. Art therapy isn’t as safe as your personal practice.

Was this something you had to discover or, because your parents are psychologists, was it an idea you grew up with?

I went to art school in high school, but my parents were against art as a career. It was the typical East Asian parent thing of—You have to be a doctor or you’re a failure! So I went to the University of Toronto for two years and took cognitive psychology. I spent two years pretending art was no longer a part of my life and that got me very depressed: I didn’t leave the house for a year and was suicidal for six months. I tried to do everything but go back to art. I got new groups of friends, changed my living situation, and I even went and lived in Africa for a year. When I got back, I was just tired of being sad, so I started to paint. But it took three years to bring me out of that state. It wasn’t just, Oh, I’m painting again and everything is good.

Why do you think painting is so healing for you?

It’s a control thing. You can’t control anything in life. You have to be such a strong person to even control your own thoughts. You don’t want to control feelings because feelings aren’t something you dictate. You can’t keep people, or shape things to be how you want. But with paint you can. It’s so immediate. Oh my god, the feeling I get when I’m painting is so intense; it ranges from pure bliss to anxiety-filled panic attacks. I cried, like, 17 times when I was working on that big red canvas.

So how does your digital art fit into this emotional approach to work?

There’s still a tactile satisfaction that comes with it, because I paint and sculpt and make etchings that I use as the basis for digital work. But when I get to manipulate things digitally, it’s just pure fun.