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The award-winning illustrator and motion designer says the future of her field depends on what only people can bring to an image.
Sishuang Wu has built her career between two disciplines. She works as a creative director at an advertising company, where animation and motion graphics fill most of her days. Away from client deadlines, she continues to return to the practice that started it all for her: illustration.
The drawing came first. Wu used illustration to express what she felt long before she learned to animate, and she still treats it as the root of her other work. “For me, illustration is where every creative journey begins,” she says. “It is the source of inspiration and the foundation of my motion design work.”
This belief has gained new weight as artificial intelligence (AI) changes the way images are made. Where some illustrators see a threat, Wu sees a question worth answering carefully. She does not believe that the real competition is whether a person or a machine draws better. Her reasoning is straightforward: A tool, however capable, has nothing to say. The meaning in a piece still has to come from a person, and that’s the part that Wu thinks artists should protect. “AI itself has no desire to express itself. After all, it’s a very efficient tool,” she says. “The spiritual core that a person wants to express, combined with AI execution, can create great work.”
She sees several clear paths forward for illustrators who think this way. One is building original characters and intellectual property that carry a distinct point of view. Another is working in animation, games and interactive media, where an illustrator’s sensibility can travel between formats. A third is handing over the execution to AI while the artist sharpens the judgment, taste and direction behind it. Motion graphics, the field in which Wu already works, strikes him as a natural space for illustrators to expand.
“If this is an irresistible trend, then we need to understand it as soon as possible, implement it and grow with it,” she says.
How Sishuang Wu works
Wu’s illustrations tend to start with a feeling rather than a plan. Joy, sadness, anxiety or a reaction to something happening around her will settle in her mind until she has to put it down on paper. She starts with pencil sketches, gathering visual references as she goes, then moves the work to a tablet, where loose ideas are squeezed into something purposeful.
“The sketching stage is filled with freedom, imagination and discovery,” she says. “As the work moves to my tablet, the ideas become more refined and deliberate.”
Within her advertising work, almost everything she creates is for clients. Illustration is the part she keeps to herself. “It gives me space to stop, connect with myself, and just create for personal expression,” she says. “There is something deeply satisfying about making art without worrying about whether other people will like it.”
Gaining recognition
On April 17, 2025, Wu was appointed a American Illustration 44 Chosen Winnerone of the longest jury programs in the field. Her piece was selected by the program jury for The ARCHIVE, AI-AP’s permanent online collection, an honor reserved for a select group of professional illustrators each year. She drew the winning piece by hand. The major illustration awards don’t accept AI-generated entries, at least for now, so the recognition also demonstrates a point Wu cares about: the piece is entirely her own, not machine-generated. For an artist who treats illustration as personal rather than commercial, the recognition confirmed that the work she did for herself could stand alongside the best in her profession.
Works that show her range
One of Wu’s latest projects started with a meal. A friend visited during a spell of hot weather, and Wu made her a favorite cold dish. Her friend liked it enough to ask for the recipe. Instead of writing it down, Wu turned it into an animated recipe for pig’s ear in chili sauce, a traditional Chinese cold dish meant for summer. The illustrations she made functioned as the style frame, the visual blueprint for the animation that followed. The project shows how she moves an idea from a small personal moment to a finished piece of motion design.
A second project, Extinction: Save the Planet, emerged from the pandemic and is now featured on the art platform Gallerium. During that period, the fear of death felt to Wu like an approaching apocalypse. She pondered how ancient viruses could emerge from the oceans, melting glaciers, and the damage humans do to the natural world. Life is back to normal, she notes, but the work questions whether the next disaster is only a matter of time, and whether humans will always remain at the top of the food chain. It’s a heavier record than the recipe project, and together the two pieces show an artist who can move between warmth and warning without losing her voice.
What comes next
Wu intends to continue illustrating for years to come, whatever happens with the tools, and she has a clear sense of the path she wants to take. It begins where her work always has, with a feeling or emotion that she needs to enter the page. From there, she brings illustration together with motion graphics, letting the two disciplines feed off each other. She also sees a place for AI in that process, using it to work more efficiently and strengthen the visual output rather than replace the idea behind it. If AI becomes a permanent part of how illustrators work, Wu is ready for it, as long as human intent remains at the center.
