Ilika CuiAcademic Scholarship, Kings Christian School, Cherry Hill, NJ

Young Scholars Program, University of Pennsylvania

Awards and Recognitions

• Awarded 'Best Carving‘ for Chadds Ford Historical Society Great Pumpkin Carve, 2013

• Featured High School Artist, Moore College of Art Student Show, 2014

• Awarded 'Best in Show‘, Camden County Youth Arts Festival

• Student Council Secretary - 1st foreign exchange student to be voted in

• Student Director – High School Arts Council

• Awarded the Kings Excellence in Academics Scholarship for 2014/15 and 2015/2016 school years

• Selected as Junior Student Leader for ASCI National Leadership Conference in Washington, DC., 2015

• Appointed by Kings School Faculty President to serve as a translator for Faculty/Agency/Student Sessions

• Appointed Varsity Boys Basketball team manager, 2015 season

• Team player- Varsity Girls Basketball team, 2014

• National Honor Society Inductee, 11th grade, 2014

• Gold and Silver Medals in the All China Youth Arts Competition, dance & vocals, 2011

The following pieces are a random sampling of quick work I’ve done over the past couple of years.Some have descriptions, some don’t.

My host mom’s brother took this photo in Cape Cod and asked me to do an oil painting of it. 2’ x 3’ size on canvas.

This piece is 5x5cm in size. By giving a lot of detail and information in a restricted

space, I am able to draw out the vividness of the tiger.

This painting is inspired by The Phantom of The Opera. The chaotic love and the dark atmosphere gave me a profound impression when I was little. This painting was done purely with the painting scraper. I chose chaotic and harsh brushwork to express the scene at that moment when everything is falling apart - the omen of tragedy.

The bright chandelier becomes the main part of the painting, which is in comparison to the dark tone of the background. The randomly scattered yellow further shows the turmoil. The preened people lose their affected demeanor.

The only thing left is chaos and panic.

The utilization of straightforwardly childish color expresses the so called positive atmosphere in China.

The large area of blue indicates the clear sky we used to have. Tiananmen Square symbolizes the full control

upon Chinese people by the government. The oversized portrait of Mao Zedong represents people's idolatry and

apotheosis toward him. The two wordless banners on the wall indicates that no matter what is on it, its

redness already embodies its Communist dominance on the people.

The seemingly peaceful image ironically highlights the current tenuous situation in China. The lines that are

supposed to be straight are all distorted, which demonstrates that the most ‘perfect’ representative

building of China is actually a symbol of distortion itself. As a kid growing up in Beijing this has been my

viewpoint since I was little.

This is the same painting as the previous one except that it is covered by air pollution. I left China for high school and college in America so I wouldn’t die from pollution. My parents are still live there and are victimized by smog in Beijing. My mom has developed an allergic reaction to the air there, and has to be on medication for a quarter of the year. She is not the only one who suffers because of the pollution in China. During the two month summer vacation in Beijing, I caught the same symptoms as well, which are still operating when I come back to the States. The air quality index is 200 worse than the standard value WHO gives. It is not a mere figure but shows the countless damage to health and life that people are dealing with. The pollution is the byproduct of overdevelopment in China. The government never tries to find a balance between development and sustainment. The smog in the painting looks heavy but in reality it is worse.

Emotion makes humans human. The four paintings above represent different emotions. I believe that emotions have their own

colors and people respond to different colors with different emotions. Sometimes I see the colors of emotions like they are

visible and I can distinguish the specific colors for even tiny bit of emotions.

Those colors are like music, they have their own orders and rhythm. When I paint those colors, I recall the corresponding

emotions, which reminds me of different memories. I’ve tried to recreate these emotions through the colors I paint. I think art

can be a sincere, pure, and a safe form of communication. That's why I think it is a useful tool to be applied to common life, like

art therapy. These paintings were purposely abstract and quick, and were entirely created by painting scraper.

This is a typical Chinese girl's appearance. The blank space in the picture shows that it is an incomplete personality because of the sexism and preference toward boys imposed upon the Chinese people. Due to the severe suppression on females in China, lots of women's mentalities are distorted. Excessive shopping and focus on looks, overuse of plastic surgery, and self-hatred are incorporated into their world views.

These are vivid widespread facts in China. The black color that covers her eyes epitomizes the information control over girls. They often are unable to have access to good education because of their gender and thus become mediocre throughout their whole lives. They often feel hopeless.

Two 2’ X 2” small works. Apple is colored pencil on sketchpad. Bird is oil on board.

This is a pencil sketch of an owl I did for my math teacher.

2’ x 3’ oil on canvas. My first commission. Done for a friend’s nephew who competes inbronco riding out west.

I was inspired by the movie Dark Knight for this series called ‘Unity in Diversity’. I was fascinated by the similarity in thoughts in two supposedly opposite characters. Their characters are wrapped up together; there would be no joker without Batman and vice versa. They have the same craziness but end up with juxtaposed results, like two branches from one tree, two sides of one coin. They are so soaked in their idealism that one turns into psycho criminal and one becomes the suffering hero. They cannot live without each other. This interesting theory is demonstrated in many movies, literature and other media forms, which I found intriguing because people only focus on the goodness of the hero character but choose to ignore the underlying goodness of the bad one. People often forget that there is good and bad within all of us, it’s just that the impulse to do wrong is suppressed or not.

People easily see Batman as a cool cold superhero, but we forget that he does not have any super powers and is only a human under his mask like Joker. Batman wants to save people, save lives, do justice, but he also gives up the good fight in the end and kills Joker. It is essentially the same kind of evilness that Joker possesses.

This is another work in the series ‘Unity in Diversity’.

This painting is inspired by the poster of the last Harry Potter movie. When my childhood hero is all grown up with dirt and

pains in his eyes, he is no longer the innocent kid he used to be. Harry Potter is not purely good. He has evilness in his heart

just like Voldemort, but the overcoming of his dark thoughts makes him a hero.

This is another work in the series ‘Unity in Diversity’.

Voldemort is the typical ‘evil’ man in a storybook

with the evil look and black magic, but what made

Harry Potter more than just children's books is the

complexity of the characters such as Voldemort.

Like Harry, he is a genius who has an abnormal

childhood. He believes so much in his magic like

Harry Potter does. Pure evilness does not totally

consume him because of his occasional benevolence

and his miserable childhood.

Colored pencil on sketch paper with watercolor background.

Study Hall doodles

This is the prior improvisational design for the Great Pumpkin Carve, in Chadds Ford, PA which started by an artist I respect a lot, Jamie Wyeth. The pencil sketching I drew on the left is inspired from my pet goldfish. I’ve done this event for 4 years and love the spontaneity of it. You don’t know what shape pumpkin you are going to get so it stretches your creativity because you often haveto change your approach. Over 100 carver/artists compete. My first year I won the ‘Best Carving’ prize.

This is my first carving for the Chadds Ford great pumpkin carve. I won the ‘Best Carving’ prize that year.

Photoshop work on Bekah.