2026 Portfolio — Angelina Shi
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Title: Overgrowth
Year: 2026
Medium: charcoal, micron pen on paper
Size: 33 x 23.4 in
You can cross Singapore from its northern edge to its southern coast in forty minutes. I love this island dearly, yet its physical limits mirror an internal confinement—a repetition of daily life and a narrowness in perspective. This piece captures the emotional tug-of-war between wanting to stay anchored and realizing I am outgrowing my country.
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Title: Procrastination Nation
Year: 2026
Medium: oil on Canvas
Size: 27.5 x 19.5 in
Procrastination, for me, has become a delicate art: hours of nothing followed by an adrenaline rush to complete everything at midnight. It is a notoriously hard loop to escape: coasting on unearned free time, weighed down by background anxiety, unable to move until deadline panic becomes the only force strong enough to spark action. Drawing inspiration from Clive Smith’s realistic depictions of human emotion, this piece uses realism to make the weight of stagnant panic and inertia visible.
Title: Bite
Year: 2026
Medium: soft pastel, charcoal, micron pen on paper
Size: 19.7 x 16.5 in
Too often, people choose dog breeds for their appearance without understanding their needs, blaming the dog for problems caused by poor training and lack of exercise. I see this on a small scale with my uncle, who blames his Border Collie for destroying furniture despite only giving him a brief daily walk. On an extreme scale, high-energy breeds like Cane Corsos can develop dangerous aggression when understimulated, often ending in euthanasia after someone gets hurt. This piece explores the tragedy of that extreme outcome. The words flowing out of the syringe blame the breed for its violence, but as they feed into the bite wound, it reveals: human ignorance creates the very violence it ultimately condemns and destroys.
Title: Still Life
Year: 2026
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 11.69 x 8.27 in
I spent the summer between my junior and senior year in Shanghai. Naturally, shopping was a big part of the trip. After a few days of exploring, I noticed that almost everything I bought was colorful, soft, and a little cute. In third grade, I remember waging a war against the color pink (eager to grow up and desperate not to be seen as just a "little girl"). It felt ironic that now, standing on the edge of high school graduation, I was drawn right back to the comfort of the childhood I had been so eager to leave behind.
Title: Dreamscape (Minus the Mosquitoes)
Year: 2026
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 19.5 x 27.5 in
This piece originated as a figure study before expanding into a surreal personal sanctuary—a wide field set under a pink sky where translucent fish float through the air like clouds. While it depicts an idealized haven free from the constraints of everyday life, it also holds an irony. Real nature brings stifling heat and mosquitoes, serving as a reminder that while the imagination is a wonderful escape, there is much to be said for the comfort of modern shelter.
Title: The Expatriate Bubble
Year: 2026
Medium: soft pastel, screen printing on paper
Size: 11.69 x 8.27 in
This work examines the insulation of living within Singapore’s expatriate bubble. Marked as an outsider the moment my American accent makes itself known, I distort mundane local environments—HDB public housing, hawker centers, and school classrooms— through a literal bubble. The warped perspective parallels the barrier between inhabiting a place and belonging to it.
Title: The View From My Roof
Year: 2026
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 73.62 x 34.25 in
My mood is deeply tied to the weather: tropical thunderstorms always trigger a spike in my anxiety, and my saddest days never seem to fall under a clear sky. This piece explores how atmospheric conditions mirror and shape human emotion. Intende to wrap around a central pillar, the artwork requires the viewer to physically walk around it to experience different weather states unfolding. This dynamic, spatial installation method was inspired by the interactive design work of The Rodina.
Title: Speaking of Courage
Year: 2026
Medium: watercolor, micron pen on paper
Size: 16.5 x 11.7 in
Inspired by "Speaking of Courage" from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, this graphic page translates Norman’s internal wartime trauma into a visual narrative. The story's striking sensory details served as a blueprint to map out his flashbacks, depicting his memories of war as a reflection of the historical trauma that defined the Vietnam War and the soldiers who lived through it.
Title: Gift Basket
Year: 2025
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 24 x 24 in
In Chinese culture, certain presents carry taboos—like clocks, because "gifting a clock" (sòng zhōng) sounds identical to the phrase for attending a funeral or paying last respects (sòng zhōng). I only learned this after taking AP Chinese, an realization that illustrates the distance between myself and my cultural heritage. This drawing depicts me offering a gift basket filled with these taboo items. Viewed through the distorted fish-eye lens of a door peephole, the perspective captures what it feels like to navigate my own culture: like an outsider looking in from a blurred, distant threshold.
Title: Osmanthus Tree
Year: 2026
Medium: watercolor, fine liner pen, micron pen on paper
Size: 21.6 x 13 in
Having helped raise me from infancy, my grandmother is a deeply important part of who I am. As time passed, however, she chose to remain in her home in Sichuan, China, and our visits became rare. Between COVID-19 and my current high school responsibilities, our connection has mostly been through video calls. A core childhood memory is seeing her grow osmanthus trees and make flower buns from the fresh blossoms. In a sense, I am like those trees, grown from her care. In this drawing, a young osmanthus sapling matures and slowly covers my grandmother, visualizing the literal and emotional distance that has naturally formed between us as I grow older.