#artvsartist2025 maybe this is a late post 🧘🏽‍♀️ we can ignore that it is February 🚶🏽‍♀️‍➡️ as I continue to work at the pace of a snail…

Laaaaa la la la laaa ♪( ´θ｀)ノ I forgot about Instagram crop as I always do 😞 Did you know: this is my favourite English album of all time? Part 2 of grad school the comic 💫 based on my old school motto (esse non videri) is called non which is the Latin word for not/without. In this context, it’s not. Because some Not chill things happened 🙂‍↔️☝️ The lore of this page. The top part is based on a Mario party mini game called Look Away, the bottom is based on two of swords from tarot Aside from my own life and culture and the symbolism from there, there is a Heavy tarot and Mario Party and well overall gaming element to the entire comic. I like games a lot and Mario Party is actually my favourite 🤩🍄 I also enjoy reading tarot and getting my cards read 🙂‍↕️ I draw I draw I tried to think, if you went into my brain and saw how I processed things how would that even look? It’s hard to explain it all so I thought really hard about how to combine all the things that occur within my unmedicated adhd brain from the music choices for each post to all other little things in each Big page. Because sure there’s a bunch of symbols sprinkled throughout but the big pages 🙂‍↕️ space is so limited and everything must therefore be intentional Years of drawing broken glass because I love broken glass I love broken mirrors I love umbrellas you may think one of these is not like the other but think of rain and how it looks like glass sometimes and you’ll see how many things are connected 😃 Can you guess what the next post will be 🤪 #comic #gradschool #chicagoartist #twoofswords

CXC was fun 🤩 As always it was so lovely meeting new people and seeing friends I don’t get to see often anymore 🥹 So nice to be back in Ohio and reunited with the intersection of high and gay street Last con of the year,,,but not last event. Stay tuned Now I am locked away in comics and rest lock in. I will not be freed for now. Not until the final version of grad school exists 🥴 Goodnight (( _ _ ))..zzzZZ 🖊️ Photo 10: a panel drawn by the one and only Kelly Wang 🙂‍↕️

@spxcomics was so much fun 🥹 it was so nice meeting so many cool people. It’s always such a wonderful thing to watch people interact with my work and my friends works 🤩 Can’t wait to go back 🤩🤩🤩

Square version of this image because instagram crop will not get me today… Rumor has it that @oli.agu and I will be at @spxcomics this weekend. I debated whether or not to debut something at SPX, because it’s my first time going and I’m still not done to a place of my liking with my bigger comic. However 😍 I finished a mini mini story of it. This is a more fun lighthearted section of the overall comic, and given everything in the world right now, I thought a more fun lighthearted thing would be the perfect thing to debut :) Come find me at table W32A for very limited editions of a grad school mini story :) they’re going to be $5 And of course, in addition to that I’ll have stickers, mere exposure effect, useless and some other things 😍 I look forward to seeing you there! I’ve never been to Maryland before so I’m excited!

Grad School the comic soon… I’m taking a fun class rn that allows me to Lock In. Because grad school is the giant it is…it is divided into 3 parts. For this class, I’m drawing the third part mostly Here’s a sneak peek of some of what is to come in general tho

🫩🤯 my brain has never shrunk and expanded simultaneously like this Soil (2025) The World (2025 Tourist (2025) Beach (2025) When I was an ambitious undergraduate, I thought oh when I’m a grad student here (didn’t get into grad school yet) I’ll have a room for the MFA show 🙂‍↕️ who knows what I’ll put in there 🤔 Soil - many have questioned the name and wondered if I’m giving the people who said questionable things power for this. I don’t really think so. I think of it more as twisting your own words against you. The world - the name of this changed a lot. And i thought about how to talk about the pressure of growing into many roles without a clear path. Beach and Tourist - I took @olfactoryartclass because I reaaaaalllyyy wanted to integrate scent into this piece! And it was actually one of my most successful components of it 🥹 many came into the exhibition sniffing like a moth to a flame 😍 This is by far, one of THE MOST ambitious and hardest things I’ve ever created for a variety of reasons. But thank you for interacting with it the way it was supposed to and thank you for such overwhelming support for it. If you want a scented picture from the show :3 dm me your address and it will materialize like a post card. Thank you to my friends who came as well 🙂‍↕️ not all of you are pictured but you all live in my heart forever which is much longer lasting than any image And thanks to whoever left the book open to promote grad school the comic 😭 which I am still working on yes 🫩 look out for that…soon 👀 You have all helped me be so proud to be Kristen Lee Thank you to my advisors 😩 but they get their own post later because they have to sign my thesis 😮‍💨

The World (tarot comic version) vs instagram crop The constellations are Air- Gemini to the left Water - Cancer and Scorpio to the right. Earth - Thai constellation monstera Fire- hmm that lion looks familiar to me This is one of the final unedited pages of grad school the comic 🤩 coming soon ➖👄➖ For a whole semester, I wondered how to portray water for this 😭 and a lot of people had really good feedback but after drawing multiple versions, none of them really felt right. Until, suddenly. In the middle of Today 🫥 which is the last day I gave myself to finish this card - or at least the idea for it. I realized oh maybe this will look nice. So I drew it and I liked it. Every other element was so obvious to me, for reasons that’ll be clearer when you read the comic when it comes out 👁️👄👁️ But I feel like talking about it more anyway. Air, the sign of Gemini is a constant and through line throughout the entire comic for various reasons. One of the main ones being, the protagonist is a Gemini 🤩✨ Earth, there are many themes of nature and growth throughout the comic. I will not spoil this one more than I already have, but these are beautiful plants! And they are expensive plants 🫥 Fire, once again within the realm of astrology, Leos are oftentimes represented as a lion. Rawr. This specific lion may look familiar to many 🙂‍↕️ especially if you go for a stroll by the museum Water, this one was hard 💀 as previously stated. Because how does one. Draw that? Contextually. I did have to think of the entire project as a whole. And I finished writing the last section first. Then I was like oh yeah it should be these signs duh. And I liked the thought of having this card have stars in the night sky. Or at least cloudy magical sky. Especially because of how much it contrasts the fool card 😍 In the left hand is a degree and in the right is an iced americano with blonde ristretto updosed shots and extra ice. Which has just become a chosen drink of the latter half of grad school 🫥 I am glad 😮‍💨 to have solved this because it took forever. #theworld #gradschoolthecomic #thaiconstellation

Kristen scribit et non dormit Final crit ever as a grad student at SAIC. Finally, a really good one too! Thank you to everyone for their insightful comments and to Oliver for being my note taker and for Lindsy who came to my crit :3 what a nice ending 😍 And then of course a little filming moment after my crit 🤩 there’s never just one thing on crit day 🙂‍↔️ Lastly, I accidentally created a tradition of watching a good movie or going to a concert after my crits. -1st crit: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes -2nd crit: concert -3rd crit: Wicked -4th crit: Sinners

Install for MFA show is finally over omg what a journey. Despite trying to plan for every single thing I still found myself entangled in trials and tribulations. I did basically live in my studio this week and you’d think as a result I was early to all my classes but I was in fact somehow later than usual to each. My feet are still squishy from the torrential rains of today, but I’m so glad to have finished everything and have it on the walls 😭😭😭 Working on these two projects was somewhat frightening but I think necessary. There are a lot of words but then I remembered I’m an MFAW student so wouldn’t it be strange if there weren’t. It was so fun working with new mediums and trying new things. These are ideas I’ve had for a really long time and although maybe they didn’t come out exactly how I pictured it - each time I had to pivot I thought “how can I still convey a similar idea or similar thoughts?” And that was really helpful! Thank you to my wonderful friends Kelly and Glenn 😭 I would not have survived install without you 🫡🫡🫡 Also everything has a scent, be sure to sniff your way around my pieces 👃 Opening reception is May 10th! See you then 🦭

The world may seem bleak but that doesn’t mean we must also be :3 Stop by the 4th floor of maclean to make a wish 🌸💫 on a magical flower. As long as you wish for good, may good things always find you :) This is a part of the @olfactoryartclass exhibition. Such a lovely class that I’ve wanted to take for the longest time ! I’ve always wanted to integrate as many senses as possible into my art so it’s nice to finally get scent involved :] I recently learnt about twin cinema poetry and have started writing a lot of those because how fun to tell stories in different ways 🤩 Many have asked if the scent has a name, it does :3 And it’s Prema (प्रेम) 💫 #olfactoryart

📍 116 S Michigan Ave Rm 803 11:15-12:15CST Story time w me and Lori tomorrow. Bring family, bring a friend, bring a lover? Bring a secret third thing 🫣🤫? Either way, I’d love to see you there if you can make it. Some parts will be heHE HAHA 🤩 some parts will not be hehe haha ☹️ but there will be popcorn! If you are a non saic student though and you plan on coming pls lmk so I can check you in with security 🤪 and pls get here early 🫥 Thank you to @oopsrobynn for being such a slay and making all the posters for all the readings 🩷 though this art is the cover of my grad thesis comic, the thought of making posters makes me cry I’ll post a zoom link later (^_−)−☆ for all of my baddies not in the Windy City 🏙️

Last ever SAIC art sale 🤯 Thanks @saiclife for giving me a glimpse into what it’s like to have a flower shop bookstore So many last evers this semester, and I’ve been thinking about that a lot as I do each thing for the last time. For this art sale too, I wanted to have the most affordable table I’ve ever had 🥹 because I can finally do that 😩 Such an honour to table with my fellow Gemini queen @ashnishah16 💖 one of the realest friends and best Geminis to exist. Also some of my fav fortunes from my lucky cyantotype fortunes! They’re going fast 👀

The second version of the cover of grad school thee comic…yeah defeated by instagram crop everyday and you may be like why don’t you just make more things square…and that’s an excellent question that I’m not going to answer. Of course the cover doesn’t have the black sides I just added those for excitement because we all need excitement. What a long way to say come to my MFAW reading next week, bring a friend maybe 11:15-12:15CST Lakeview (116 S Michigan Ave) Rm 803 There’ll be popcorn! And this is not the last you’ll hear of this…

Short break from all long form comics for a quick last minute comic 🥹🌱 but as it’s my last semester, of course I had to put time aside to submit to the one and only @therealxeroxcandybar 🌸 I missed working in colour Even though last minute, this may be my favourite submission ever. I will love this group forever and ever I still have not seen the aurora 😪 don’t be fooled I wondered a lot about obsession and changed my idea many times 🫥 which then lead me to a last minute panic 🫥 but then I thought about life a lot recently and thought of how much I love watching the world around me, am I obsessed with all of the small things? Pay no attention to the hands 🫥 or any other imperfections 🫥 yA one sleeve is longer than the other 😩 I did this in 2 hours 😭 to be fair…I do have some shirts where one sleeve is longer than the other. Pretend you do not see it 😪 Also the Instagram crop and deep fry 😪 Back to the shadows of my thesis work 🫡

the grind the grind the out of context grind ooo chicagohenge the grind the grind ooo Bob Ross painting the grind the grind the out of context grind My most 🫥 productive semester in grad school making so many things…working…. MFA show you lurk in the background of my mind Thesis comic you haunt the shadows of my brain MFAW reading,,,, owowowowowo It may not look like it, but these are about to be some of the most Jamaican things I have ever created 😍 no spoilers, not by choice I’m just not done with anything 🤣😐 Upon reflection I can understand why many believe I am in a long term committed relationship. No, I just spend a lot of time consuming the romance genre and I am observant and I’m ruled by Venus. I am married to school 😍💍

Rockstar Heejin 🎸 @0ct0ber19 ur so cool A wip that’s been sitting in procreate for an eternity 🧍🏽‍♀️ I’m sorry heejin 😩 #heejin #artms #jeonheejin #loona

Hourly comics like a month late 😭😭😭😭 sORRY Day in the life of a barista who opens but has the day off, TA and most importantly a Jamaican who lives in Chicago #hourlycomicday #hourlycomicsday #hourlycomicday2025 #chicago

Sometimes you are just plagued by nine of swords #nineofswords #tarot #gradschoolthecomic