Shiyan Chen is an illustrator who primarily works with traditional media, including pencil, ink, watercolor, and colored pencil. She describes her illustrations as elegant, bold, and sensitive, focusing on female figures in provocative, powerful poses, dressed with confidence, against a minimal background.

She draws pictorial and lettering inspiration from 1940s to 1960s fashion magazine archives and Art Nouveau and interprets them with modern color palettes and simplified shapes. The artist also documents fleeting yet beautiful moments in her life with photography, which she uses as references, usually depicting floral, hair, and decorative elements. However, the figures are not simply objects to be observed; they hold the viewers’ attention and capture their curiosity, as subjects of their own.

Chen’s body of work, especially her book illustrations for Toni Morrison’s novel, Paradise, intends to uplift the spirit of the viewers with inspiring women despite their tragic circumstances. She believes resilience, empathy, courage, and creativity are a few of the most important qualities that humans need to maintain to not be carried away by the numbness we feel in this corrupt world. Making art is an action to regain strength for oneself and share hope for others.