I am Athena Zhi Yan Romano and I am an artist whose practice focuses on digital illustration and experimental animation. I was born in Vancouver B.C., Canada, but I grew up in Hong Kong and Beijing during my childhood years. Besides having to live with my Chinese family during school semesters, I go to Italy to celebrate Christmas every year with my Swiss family. It wasn’t until I was in grade 9 that I came back to Canada, and learned more of Canadian culture by myself.
The personal experiences and cultures I was surrounded by hugely shaped my works, not to mention my interests in video games, anime, and animated movies and shows that play a huge influence in my artworks too. Most of my works explore and consist of art media such as digital painting, 2D and experimental animation, illustration, and hand-built pottery. The central idea of my concentration when it comes to artworks is the role of fantasy and how it plays into humanity. My works may be emotional, deep, and even consuming, but most importantly, I think they bring a fun connection to how humans take the adventures that don’t exist in real life. I also like to capture moments of my life and combine them with the elements of fantasy, creating memories or feelings of those memories in more artistic and dream-like ways. For instance, my piece “stargazing” is a hand-built pottery piece. I recreated the memory of star gazing with my family and friends but also added fantasy symbols to it. The visual representation of my works becomes remarkable to view.
Growing up, I was known as the “art kid” in my family and school, but I never accomplished something this big: during my high school graduation ceremony, I was the only one to achieve the “Artist of the Year” award. I became one of the most praised artists ever in the school. Aside from my schooling accomplishments, I was recently commissioned to do an important animation project for a women-led investment company that was based in New York. That animation was sent to everyone that was associated with the company and it was like a year-wrap animation to thank all the people who they were working with. Besides all these winnings, the true goal as an artist is hope to reveal the bridge of humanity and fantasy.