A balance of male weakness and female strength: Saitemiss captures fleeting moments in her anime-infused illustrations

If you look at Saitemiss’ work, the first thing you’ll notice is the gleaming protagonist. The character usually has tousled white hair, flowing in an imaginary breeze that feels full of movement despite the fact the image is a still. But what’s most intriguing about this character is their ambiguity. Look closer and you’ll be hard-pressed to land on a decisive gender, ethnicity or personality trait. What we can surmise, however, is that the character is full of intensity, with a gaze that follows you around the room like the Mona Lisa, but a digital, ACG-inspired version. ACG being the subculture dedicated to Japanese anime, comics and games. 

The thinking behind these characters is wrapped up in an amalgamation of references pulled together by the artist 鍾逸婷 or Jhong Yi Ting, who goes by the creative moniker, Saitemiss. Having grown up in rural Taiwan, in a town called Kaoshiung, south of the capital, she had little access to popular culture until the age of six or seven, when her family got a new channel showing cartoons. 

She rarely draws the same character twice but there is a resemblance that unites them all. “It’s usually to do with my emotions,” she says of the link. The illustrator sees all her characters existing in the same universe and pictures each one in her mind’s eye before putting pen to paper. “When I’m illustrating,” she adds on her process which goes through several iterations, “I’ll imagine all the different angles this person might have. In my mind, they all seem very different from one another.” There are also magical hints cutting through the composition of Saitemiss’ work. Her illustrations are punctuated with graphic motifs, often cordoned off in small, colourful boxes which offset the layout with an abstract offhandedness.

Each illustration brims with a wealth of imagery, and as the viewer looks closer, a story can be carefully unpacked by dissecting the symbols and how they relate to one another. When asked about this level of complexity and how she goes about creating it, Saitemiss explains: “I like the idea of capturing a single moment in an entire frame.” At university – where she studied graphic design – Saitemiss also took a film class where she was introduced to Soviet montage theory. Emerging in the 1920s, the movement saw Soviet filmmakers rely heavily on editing or the assembling of multiple images to create a cinematic effect. Similar to a comic book spread, panels are used to denote narrative progression, and Saitemiss liked this idea of capturing “a lot of different moments in one frame.” 

As is the case with all illustrators, her colour palette is essential. For Saitemiss, finding the right colour is a subtle art. Drawn to pastels, metallic chromes and bold swathes of black, the illustrator’s use of colour elevates her work from its childlike anime origins, giving it an unmistakable edge that feels more attune with fine art or high fashion. By altering colours by one or two shades, Saitemiss feels “a totally different piece of art” is born. So though it may seem as if her work is similar colour-wise, if you look closer, there are countless variations that only add to the overall nuance of the work.

Experimentation through iteration also plays a key part in Saitemiss’ process. It’s a method that takes us back to the illustrator’s early days when she worked as a graphic designer. After graduating from university, she worked at a large design company, remembering, “I wasn’t having that much fun doing graphic design, so sometimes I’d finish work early and start drawing.” Drawing offered a rest bite from the layouts and grids and she recalls drawing late into the evening, expanding her practice until gradually graphic design became less stimulating. 

“We all have this little girl quality within,” she says of this intention. She wants the viewer to feel the endless joy she found in Shōjo manga (the comics aimed at young teenage girls, “shōjo” being the Japanese word for “girl”) which Saitemiss loved for so long, as a young girl in Kaoshiung. Through a single image, Saitemiss is able to encapsulate the complexity of deep thoughts that pinball around our head at any given moment. She draws this out for us, the viewer, for as long as our attention can last, like a filmic technique where a scene moves in slow motion to heighten a character’s frame of mind. It’s during these moments that Saitemiss is giving “everybody a chance to experience that young girl’s fleeting emotion.”