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Issue Illustrator | Fiona Hsu

Each issue of Up the Staircase Quarterly features an Issue Illustrator, an artist whose work was chosen to pair with and complement the poetry of the quarter.  Issue #47's artist is Fiona Hsu.
Fiona Hsu was born in February of 2001 in Orange County, California. At the age of five, her artistic journey ignited when her mother encouraged her to make paper dolls instead of playing with cheap plastic toys. As she became better with her hands, her paper friends inspired her to keep creating. And so a passion for art ignited. She started drawing and painting on her own ever since, and during her recovery from a foot tendon surgery back in 2015, she developed a blazing passion for art photography at the age of fourteen.

Her works capture the aspects of beauty within woeful and melancholic definitions that narrate quaint and odd stories, in which she hopes her art serves as rusty mirrors for her audience—reflecting and reminding them of a quality and/or memory from the past.

​Fiona’s artworks are inspired by her dreams at night, her childhood imaginations, and the complex forms of emotions she discovered within herself. After all, Fiona’s surreal photographs are meant for her to relive the dreams she kept safely in her dream journal and imagine the ones that haven’t yet been dreamed in her slumber. Her drawings and paintings are meant for her to remember a memory, emotion, and/or secret she encountered in her life.

In Fiona’s greatest achievements, she has won first place in Yorba Linda Women’s Club art competition in 2019 with recognition from Congress, Senate, and Assembly, and she is a National Silver Medalist of Scholastic Art and Writing Awards 2019. Fiona is currently studying at UCLA as an undergraduate studio art major. 

Fiona’s works can be found on her website and her instagram page.
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