London based illustrator Robert Sae-Heng acknowledges that his Mexican and Thai origins play a big part in his work. “I would like to think my upbringing and growing up in a number of countries (coming from a mixed background has its advantages)… has shaped the work I do today,” he told The Association of Illustrators. “Drawing had always been my form of communication and something to come back to as a form of escape.”
As is his background, so are his techniques a unique mixture, employing both traditional and digital mediums to execute his work. The finished product is playful if a tad mysterious, with his work including advertising hoardings, magazines, restaurant walls, and branding.
“I spent most my childhood in Mexico in a small village in the state of Oaxaca chasing chickens, playing with pigs and my grandfather’s donkey ‘Jesus’ at the family home and running across the hills with my mother and sister for fun,” he recalled. “We never had many books or toys when I was very young, so I feel these different experiences fuelled and opened up my imagination and in turn gave my work that sense of playful narrative and mystery, which is often based on real-life observations.”
Apart from drawing, Sae-Heng also enjoys traveling and often blends the two together by documenting his experiences through drawing. “I truly believe traveling broadens the mind,” he says. “On my travels I filled up sketchbooks with location drawings, thoughts at the time and documented stories from other people I’ve met along the way. Something like a diary. It’s important to see how other people live and a lot of my inspiration and ideas come from conversations or responses to my own thoughts/ feelings at the time.”
Take a look at some of his inspirational work in the gallery below.
