A colorful, anime-style illustration featuring a girl with long dark hair wearing pastel clothing with flower patterns, surrounded by floating eyes, flowers, butterflies, and abstract lines on a vibrant gradient background.

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio

Pu Songling’s tales of ghosts and demons were never really about ghosts and demons; they hold up a mirror to the human world, to greed, desire, and obsession, and beneath them runs a quiet critique of the society he lived in. The monsters are a reflection: what looks like a story about spirits reveals impulses that in fact live in all of us.

In a work that lays bare the darkness of human nature, I chose a flower-spirit, entering from the side of spirit rather than of ghost. She belongs to no single tale, but embodies the spirit of the world of Liaozhai, a world animated by the belief that all things are alive, that every flower and stone holds a soul of its own. And how, then, are we to look upon them?

An illustrated character design of a flower spirit with ethereal, cloud-like details, traditional Chinese clothing, and translucent qualities, depicted in a watercolor style.
A two-page spread from a book showing three pairs of colorful, abstract illustrations of flowers and plant designs with accompanying text explaining the artistic inspiration and patterns.
Mockup images of a colorful book cover with artistic, fantasy-style illustrations, including a female character with flowing hair and a green background, shown in different perspectives and layouts.