

As northbound Broadway dips down to the valley of 125th Street, the subway soars over the street. The subway viaduct is a jumble of steel slicing through the orthogonal city grid. The 125th Street viaduct is a massive arch, 250 feet from end to end, two hundred tons of mass channeled into four concrete pylons, resting on the solid bedrock of Manhattan schist. The subway is the intersection, where the underground and aboveground worlds of New York City converge. VIEW PUBLICATION >
This essay discusses the historical and contemporary challenges faced by the Chinese community in Manhattan’s Chinatown, highlighting the impact of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and ongoing discrimination against immigrants and working-class communities. Despite systemic barriers, the community shows resilience and maintains cultural identity amidst gentrification and urban development. VIEW PUBLICATION >
This paper model of Oxford folds out of a leather suitcase. This is a souvenir of my Oxford experience. It is made from paper cutouts, which were folded into various shapes. Attaining precision in a small model is difficult and took about two weeks to build.
Dimensions: 7 by 14 inches and 1.5 inches deep. VIEW PUBLICATION >
This digital portfolio highlights various artistic projects, time-lapse drawings, and models I created of Columbia University’s campus, during the time I was a student there. The portfolio features a detailed ink and watercolor campus drawing, a mini model of the campus made from paper, and six time-lapse sequences documenting artistic processes. Featured in multiple publications, these creations are now a personal souvenir of my education at Columbia.
Contact me to download source files or to order custom prints mailed to your home address. VIEW PUBLICATION >
This time-lapse of Manhattan Chinatown took sixty hours to complete and measures 26 by 40 inches. The artwork features Chinatown’s tenements in the foreground, with Lower Manhattan’s skyscrapers towering above.
Drawing is shared online in lower resolution. Email me for the full-size file. Custom size prints will be mailed to your home address on request. VIEW PUBLICATION >
A wind-up music box featuring Jane’s Carousel along the Brooklyn Waterfront. When closed, the antique cigar box measures a mere 7 by 7 inches and 3 inches deep (18 x 18 x 8 cm). When opened, the Brooklyn Bridge and historic Jane’s Carousel fold out. The carousel spins to the tune of the music while the moon slides across the night sky. VIEW PUBLICATION >
This project features a portfolio gallery of my drawings, watercolors, paintings, and photographs of Manhattan island. The portfolio is divided into ten “walks” over the chapter structure of ten “days.” Each “day” features some of my artwork about a different neighborhood of Manhattan: Chinatown, SoHo, East Village, West Village, the High Line, Madison Square, Midtown, Central Park, Riverside Drive, Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Washington Heights. VIEW PUBLICATION >
Murphy Varnish, built in 1886, is one of Newark’s oldest factories still standing. Its brick walls, terracotta ornament, and intricate brickwork reflect a time when industrial structures were more than just functional. Murphy Varnish reflects a time when industry was central to Newark’s wealth and key to its future success. It is a monument to industry, built to last. Recent renovation efforts promise to turn this derelict structure into a community of apartments. VIEW PUBLICATION >
I spent much of the past few years painting and photographing my changing city. This short film features a selection of my work, complemented by classical music. Five of Modest Mussorgsky’s pieces from his composition Pictures at an Exhibition are selected, each of which represents the feel of a certain part of Newark. VIEW PUBLICATION >


In this visual essay of drawings, paintings, and photos I explore my walks in Manhattan Chinatown. Chinatown is both static and dynamic: Static in its resilience against gentrification, dynamic in its cultural interplay between past and present, immigrant and American. VIEW PUBLICATION >
Excerpt from the Common App essay I wrote in 2015. This essay on my childhood experiences and struggles of growing up in the majority-black, inner city of Newark, NJ accompanied my successful undergraduate application to Columbia University. VIEW PUBLICATION >
View more artwork like this about my experiences walking in New York City.
Also featured in the Columbia Daily Spectator in September 2016


The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine soars above the low-slung tenements and boxy towers that edge up against it. Unfinished it survives; funds have long since dried up in our era of secularism and consumerism. Yet powerful it stands; solid stone will outlive the concrete and glass city. The cathedral’s soaring jagged silhouette seems to proclaim against the soot that darkens its façade and the urban din that drowns out the sanctity of silence: Come weather, wind, or rain, I will stand.















