What are your current sources of inspiration?
JJ: For a long time, I was drawn to Chinese silk scroll paintings, Japanese wood-block prints, Shanghai advertising posters, anatomical drawings, and etchings by Dürer, but these days I’m focused more on unlocking the imagery that lies deep in the recesses of my mind. Hence the stream of hallucinatory forms and phantoms in my sketchbooks and drawings.
There is a strong sense of fantasy and decay throughout your work. Where does that come from?
JJ: Ever since I was a child, I’ve made drawings. I’ve always had an ability to transcribe a version of what I was seeing in my mind on paper. But in a literal sense, there is always a decay in the signal from the mind to the hand when drawing—I can never draw exactly what it is I see in my head. The resistance along the nerves and the imperfect transmission of information make for interesting and unexpected mutations of my imagination.