CHAOS
A digital drawing combining SHHAN’s characters with popular-culture imagery, and a video based on it
Summary
CHAOS is a digital drawing that brings Shhan from earlier works such as Crowned together with images paying homage to scenes and elements from games, animation, and films that have deeply influenced me since childhood. It expresses the chaos that arises when different worlds mix, and I consider it one of my key works.
The method I first tried in this project was to draw each element separately at A2 size, then scale it down to the size needed and place it within an A2 background. I also combined earlier digital works in the same way. Drawing so many elements small from the outset would have limited the detail I could include, so I drew them large first, then reduced them to retain detail even in the smallest parts of the scene. I continued using this method in later work, drawing individual elements large, then scaling them down and combining them into a single artwork.
Over about a month, I shared the process on Instagram, from drawing each element one by one to the scene gradually taking its finished form. A distinctive world emerged, with beings from different worlds intertwined in a city shrouded in mist beneath a giant moon. I placed two crowned black cats in the foreground and depicted them as godlike beings. One looks into that world, while the other looks at the viewer.
Through the gaze of the cat looking at the viewer, I wanted to connect the viewer with the world within the work. I hoped that the moment viewers met the cat’s gaze, they would feel as though they, too, had entered this world.
CHAOS was used as the cover art for issue 69 of 야옹이뉴스, published in September 2021. The cover story on pages 2–3 introduced my work and creative background through an interview.
