In the world of Taiwanese illustrator Cinyee Chiu, there are no gloomy clouds, or even any people—just endless sunshine and a kaleidoscope of colors, birds, and flowers. Her works are idealized reveries painted as a pleasant routine, and they’re best enjoyed quietly, with a hot cup of tea. One can while away a long, leisurely time looking at them.
In her most well-known work, she’s drawn the jieqi, the two-week unit of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. People in former times divided the year into 24 such periods according to the position of the sun and moon, the passing of the seasons, and the changes in the weather. Chiu uses illustration to reinterpret this tradition, imagining each jieqi as an animal colored in a seasonal pattern, giving new life to a time-honored part of Chinese culture.
在台湾插画师 Cinyee Chiu 的画中世界，没有抑郁的阴雨，只有永恒的阳光、和数不尽的彩色的鸟与花。这里流光溢彩、却袅无人烟，她把脑海中对于乌托邦的遐想，都描绘出来，成了这一片和煦的日常。她的画作适合静静地欣赏，佐一杯热茶，就这样缓缓地，虚度一个漫长的时光。
而她最著名的作品《24节气》，发想自中国传统的历法24节气，即古代人民依据日月的运行位置，结合季节更迭以及气候变化，将一年划分为二十四等分的历法。她用插画重新诠释了这个美丽的传统，每一个节气在她的想像里都成为一种动物，身上披着象征不同时令的毛色和花纹，让这个渊远流长的传统，栩栩如生了起来。
Chiu is a freelance illustrator, yet as she admits, she didn’t consider art as a career until after she graduated from university. She majored in economics and for a time worked in an unrelated field. Then one day she took up the brush she’d put away during college, quit her job, and began a degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art. That’s when she finally started pursuing her dreams.
Chiu says she feels most successful when she can use art to give form to the images in her head. “This kind of success is quite addictive,” she says.” If I don’t satisfy the craving once in a while, I start to get depressed.”
现在作为一位自由接案的插画师，但她坦言，真正将艺术作为职业考量却是在大学毕业后才决定的。大学时主修经济，让她经历过一些与艺术无关的工作。直到有一次，她重拾起已被搁置了整个学生时代的画笔，她毅然辞职，申请上美国马里兰艺术学院，才开始真正追寻自己的理想。
Cinyee Chiu 形容，能通过绘画将心中的画面确实呈现出来，传递出所想的讯息，是她认为自己最能获得成就感的时候，“这种成就感可能有点成瘾性，时不时就必须补充一下，不然我的心情就会隐隐低落。”
