by ava jinying

Ava Jinying Salzman is a visual artist, graphic novelist, writer, and multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California and Warsaw, Poland, and an alum of Harvard University. Her lifelong passion lies in uncovering the stories that haunt us: giving artistic form to the ghosts and monsters of our past, so that we might confront and embrace them. ​

 

All of us inside us have monsters - the uncategorizable, uncontrollable, indestructible forces that haunt us and transcend the boundaries that give our existence order. When the structures of our lives collapse: when systems of meaning dissolve, when disaster strikes, when the deluge comes, what's left in the rubble are monsters. Monsters are the signifiers of contradiction, of brokenness, of decline, decomposition, crisis, chaos, and death - and of rebirth.​

 

Since the beginning of time, these monsters and phantoms have been a way that people have put forms and names and faces to the unspeakable; to the experiences we can’t categorize; to the painful pasts we can’t resolve. By giving the scariest, most intangible feelings a form, they become less scary. They can even become worthy of understanding, worthy of attention, and worthy of care, so that we might learn to communicate and coexist with them. This is the core of Ava’s artistic mission. ​

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She has been carrying out this mission through her "Monster Portraits", ink drawings and paintings aimed to give forms to the monsters we live with. These constitute Ava's ongoing work: they have been working with people's stories from across the globe to put names and faces to the "monsters" we carry. Since beginning their Tiktok channel in December 2023, they have garnered hundreds of thousands of followers, tens of millions of views, and a plethora of incredible stories that people have shared. She looks forward to creating more and publishing a book of her monster drawings and short stories.

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PLEASE NOTE: at this time I no longer have the capacity to take private commissions, and have very limited capacity for public commissions. I can't guarantee that I will be able to make an individual monster for you, but I always welcome you telling your story - I read them all and will try to incorporate them as best as I can into the work I do make. Thank you so much for your understanding and support <3 If you would like to reach out with your story, see the CONTACT page.