Strangers

Color Pencil and Marker on Paper

35.3x46.3cm

Last year, I spent my summer vacation in a rural village. When I first visited, the elderly people’s gaze would follow me; seeing a young person there was rare due to severe rural depopulation. I felt warmth in their excitement and curiosity, though I recognized that others might find it burdensome or uncomfortable. Inspired by how their gazes followed me everywhere I went, I depicted the elders’ faces as sunflowers following the sun. I portrayed myself as an astronaut visiting an unfamiliar world to express how foreign I must have seemed to the elders.