This piece is a drawing of Park Seonghwa from the Korean idol group ATEEZ. I am most inspired by ATEEZ so they are primarily what I draw. I wanted to make a piece that would show my love for ATEEZ, specifically Seonghwa, as they are a prominent reason I make art. I’m also inspired when I listen to music because I often picture visuals that fit my interpretation of songs; this happens to be one of the pieces that was inspired by music!

I use alcohol markers and colored pencils for all of my traditional artworks. The process and materials for this piece were the same as my usual works, except this was a much larger scale than I am familiar with. This was the perfect opportunity to try upscaling my canvas and I enjoyed it.

Through this piece, I wanted to express the feeling of confidence. I used the contrast between the subject and the background as well as the colors to create a bold and striking image. Seonghwa describes his style as “genderless, slender, and sleek” and I wanted to show a bit of that style in this piece. The background is plain white with some detail to give the impression of a photoshoot since Seonghwa is constantly doing photoshoots for magazines and fashion brands. The stars in this piece actually have a lot of significance because Seonghwa’s name literally means ‘to be a star,’ so he is represented by stars!

The name “Mars” from the title is actually one of Seonghwa’s nicknames made by putting his name backwards, which becomes Mars!