Edi Hsu

Edi Hsu is a nomadic artist who uses any medium necessary to invoke meaningful emotions. He’s a native Californian, with ancestry from Taiwan, Shanghai, and the desert-regions of Western China. Over the past 15 years, his “Soul Journal” project has been documenting various cultures by live-painting real people in their communities. These artworks utilize the speed of fashion illustration, the minimalism of East Asian brush-painting, and the vibrancy of Western Impressionism. The books are self-published and distributed globally. Recently he has been painting Soul Journals at human-rights demonstrations. Learn more about his work at @edihsu.

“Attacks on AAPI women have been a painful experience for me. It’s fueled by Western media's exoticization of AAPI women; portraying them as meek, hyper-sexualized fetishes. Yet these women consistently overcome those indignities. And throughout history, women have been the foundation of every significant civil rights movement. Yet they rarely receive any of the credit. My way of honoring them has been through live-painting AAPI women at recent rallies throughout Northern California — These are our sisters, mothers, aunts, wives, daughters, grandmothers. It's my opportunity to highlight the strong & colorful women who have shown up, and will keep showing up.“