Yaoting Wang on illustration as a language
Wang approaches illustration as a way to communicate emotion. Here, he tells CR why curiosity, ambiguity and lived experience matter more than style
“When I applied to SVA, I didn’t really know what kind of illustrator I wanted to become. I only knew that I wanted to communicate through drawing,” says illustrator Yaoting Wang, who graduated from the New York art school in 2021 after first studying product design in China.
What drew him to the programme was its broad definition of illustration. “It didn’t define illustration as a single career path. It suggested that illustration could be many different things – as long as it remained a way of thinking and communicating. That openness gave me a lot of freedom.”
Looking back, Wang believes the biggest lessons he took from the course had little to do with drawing itself. Instead, they came from building a richer life to draw inspiration from. “At school I met people from completely different backgrounds, travelled more, read more, and slowly learned how to observe the world with greater attention,” he says. “In the process I also began to understand my hometown – and myself – a little better.”
