Hi, I’m Sylvia—an artist and storyteller studying Illustration with a Creative Writing minor at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, where I’ll graduate in May 2028. My body of work lives at the intersection of my African American heritage, my early childhood in Singapore, and the global experiences that continue to shape my understanding of culture, life, and the world around me. Those experiences have given me a lasting passion for cultures across the world, and as I grow in my practice, I hope to represent them through art and share the joy that diversity has brought me.

At CCS, I focus on character‑driven illustration, storyboards, and short‑form narrative work across both digital and traditional media. My coursework ranges from storyboarding and traditional figure illustration to digital illustration and fiction writing. My Creative Writing minor has given me the freedom to develop my own stories; most recently, I’ve been working on Spell of the South, a short story from my Spring 2026 Fiction Writing Workshop that I plan to bring to life as a comic short in my junior and senior studios.

In the summer of 2025, I lived in Medellín, Colombia, for a six‑week Spanish immersion that included a graphic design internship at a full‑service creative agency, where I contributed to digital content creation while sharpening my conversational Spanish. My wider travels include study abroad programs in Greece, Peru, and Spain; personal travel through Southeast Asia, Germany, and the Netherlands; and ongoing travel across the United States—all of which continue to expand my love of architecture, culture, and food.

Languages shape the way I think about stories. English is my mother tongue; I’m conversational in Spanish; I learned elementary Mandarin in primary school in Singapore; and I’m just beginning to learn French. Studying languages teaches me how people carry emotion, humor, and rhythm differently across cultures, and that awareness flows directly into the characters I build.

My approach to gesture and character design comes from growing up in the performing arts. Years of dance since primary school—sustained by ongoing classes in ballet, contemporary, and jazz—have shaped how I move and how I pay attention to rhythm, timing, and physical detail. Musical theatre, which has been part of my life for almost as long as dance, has sharpened my understanding of pacing, weight, and character acting.

I am incredibly grateful for the experiences I’ve had throughout my life, and it is my goal to share what I’ve learned with the next generation through art and storytelling. People are at the core of my practice, and I hope that, in some small way, viewers can resonate with my work and see themselves reflected in it.