Creation Amidst Madness

One month into the year, and already it feels turbulent. The world is loud. Tensions rise, uncertainty hums beneath daily life, and the future feels unclear for many of us. And yet... hope persists. It always does. Often in the quietest, least expected places.

In carving out a space for myself, both in the world and in my daily life, I’ve been learning how to slow down. For years now, I’ve turned inward. More intentionally so in recent seasons. I’ve been studying my Tao, my natural rhythm. Learning what truly matters to me. Learning how I want to move forward, rather than simply reacting to what surrounds me.

And now, it feels like time to step forward with what I’ve gathered.

This is why I’m still here. Why this website exists. Why I remain on the internet despite many reasons not to:

Artistic creation.

My Art & Its Many Forms

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I’ve always been a doodler.

As a child, I drew on everything- paper, notebooks, margins, any surface that would tolerate me. My earliest masterpieces were hand turkeys and stegosauruses. Lines and squiggles. I once painted a swirl of color and titled it simply: Boat. It made my mom and dad laugh.

As I grew, I fell in love with anime. It felt expansive and electric, worlds layered with emotion, style, and story. I traced over images of characters to learn how to draw them. Starscream. Julie from Bakugan. Spirit. Kingdom Hearts, Naruto, Fairy Tail, they shaped my visual language.. and they shaped the world in how I percieved it.

At the same time, YouTube captured me. The idea that someone could share their passions with the world and make someone’s day brighter felt magical. For a long time, I chased that. Art drifted to the side, something I did when obsessed with a series, or when bored, or when I needed a thumbnail.

But even when I didn’t take it seriously, art was always there.

It held memories. Fixations. Friendships. Quiet afternoons. It never demanded anything from me. It simply waited.

Then I encountered an artist whose work shifted something inside me. I realized art wasn’t just decoration or skill.. it was communication. A visual language. Something capable of altering perception in a single glance.

I didn’t yet know how to create like that. I only knew I wanted to understand it.

The Shift

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Life became turbulent for a while. Personal things unraveled. And in that unraveling, my relationship to art began to change.

Reading Blue Period felt strangely prophetic. I remember as a child wishing for an anime about art. Years later, there it was, a story about obsession, discipline, discovery, and the aching desire to communicate.

Something clicked.

I had been chasing connection through YouTube. But what I truly wanted was deeper: to be understood, to understand others, to connect beyond words.

So I redirected that energy.

I let go of the “YouTuber” image I had been building and turned that same hunger toward art.

University pushed me beyond my comfort zone. I was stubbornly attached to digital and anime aesthetics, but I was required to experiment with materials, with ideas, with discomfort. And in that push, my world expanded:

I discovered oil paint.

I discovered art history.

I discovered that painting and drawing were the places I felt most free. Not because they were easy, but because they asked me that hard questions: How do you see? How do you feel? What is your voice?

I didn’t truly take art seriously until 2023. Before that, I drifted between graphic design, anime-inspired work, and uncertainty. But slowly, something steadied in me and my view began to change.

Broken Worlds

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My interests shifted from bright saturation and stylized charm to something darker, quieter, more contemplative.

Not from despair.. but from understanding.

I’m drawn to the broken. The decaying. The redeemed. The grim. The in-between states where something is falling apart yet still alive.

Kingdom Hearts was my first encounter with this idea, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Beneath its brightness, it was a story about memory and connection — about hearts as souls. About invisible threads binding people together. The desire for understanding and to be seen & understood.

I’ve always longed for that kind of connection.

Later, I found myself immersed in worlds like Berserk, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, The Last of Us, Diablo, Blade Runner. Worlds often described as bleak or ruined.

But I never experienced them as hopeless.

In broken worlds, humanity is exposed. Raw. Honest. Stripped of illusion.

There’s something paradoxically peaceful about standing in ruins and asking: What happened here? Who lived here? What did they love? What did they do? How did they live? What happened to them?

Even in collapse, life persists.

These stories ask you to continue forward despite loss. They don’t promise restoration, only perseverance. And that perseverance is powerful.

Cyberpunk futures frighten me because they feel plausible. But facing them artistically, philosophically.. feels like confronting fear head-on. It becomes a way of strengthening myself rather than shrinking from possibility.

There is brutal honesty in these worlds. And honesty, even when painful, is beautiful.

What This Means For My Work

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I don’t have all the answers yet.

I know I love oil painting. I know I love designing monsters.I know I want to paint vast, apocalyptic landscapes and intimate memories alike. I know I want to create philosophical pieces that make you pause.

I also know, more than anything, that I am still learning.

I am actively practicing letting go of perfectionism.. the voice that demands, Make it look like this. Do it right. Why isn’t it perfect yet? It should be so easy by now, do this, do that. You've been studying for now long?

Instead, I am learning to enjoy processes. To celebrate small discoveries. To study artists I admire without shame. To build skill slowly and honestly.

I want to paint moments as they felt to me. To ask: If this memory were a painting, what would it look like?

Art cannot exist without connection between creator and creation. That connection is what I’m pursuing.

School takes much of my time. There are deadlines, thumbnails, critiques. And in my small pockets of freedom, I choose between rest, homework, personal creation, reading a book, playing a game, or watching a movie and collecting shows like pokemon!

But I am proud.

For the first time, I feel clear about what I desire.

Now it is simply a matter of showing up. Slowly. Patiently.

You will see the evolution as it happens.

And perhaps next time, I will return with something tangible in my hands.

— Wani