Caroline Ji

At 26, Caroline Ji left her engineering career behind to pursue what she'd always wanted: to paint. Now a self-taught oil painter, she captures the intimate moments and relationships that shape us. Here, she talks about taking that leap, how teaching painting has sharpened her own practice, and why the people in her life inevitably find their way onto her canvas.

How did art come into your life, and at what point did you start painting?

As a child I’ve always gravitated towards drawing, there was a joy to putting pencil to paper and making things appear that excited me. I went through the Visual Arts classes in school up until grade 10 and got exposed to various types of painting, but I didn’t start painting seriously until I was 26. It was after I had quit my career as an engineer, and I randomly stumbled into an oil painting workshop. It sounds cliche, but as soon as I used the medium I realized this is what I wanted to paint with and I stuck with it ever since. 

How did you develop your style as a self-taught artist, and what were the challenges and advantages of this path compared to traditional art education?

Style is a thing perhaps best critiqued by someone else, as I’ve always thought of style as the natural accumulation of an artist’s sensitivities and sensibilities. I have never gone out of my way to develop a style for the sake of having a style - it’s like handwriting to me, it just is. I would say a clear advantage of the way I learned painting is I zeroed in on what I liked painting very early on. Looking back, even before I picked up oil painting, you could tell I gravitated towards painting people and faces in a way that’s still present in my paintings today. Self-learning requires a high degree of self-discipline and self-awareness I would say. I had to be very honest with my work and fine tune it with what I might call “taste” - even if I didn’t know what exactly was wrong and how to fix it, the intrinsic feeling of something being not quite what I wanted is what guided me through different learning stages.  

You transitioned from a career in engineering to being an artist. What was the catalyst for this major life change?

The simplest and biggest reason is because life is short. If I get hit by a car tomorrow, I don’t want to have spent my life not doing what it is I know I wanted to do. Growing up I’ve always wanted to be an artist, but the idea was shot down by my family who prioritized academia. I grew up thinking that was the same for everyone, especially those with similar backgrounds and upbringing. As I got older and talked to more people, I realized not everyone knew what it is they truly love doing. I felt like I owed it to myself to give it an earnest try before writing it off as “impossible and foolish.” I don’t want to romanticize the idea of chasing your dreams with my story, because being an artist is very difficult unless you find yourself in lucky circumstances. I left engineering and financial stability to pursue something that not only is financially unstable, the days are also littered with self-doubt and the years become more of an endurance sport. However, I love painting and I can say with certainty that I haven’t regretted my decision. 

Your works explore emotional intimacy, self-perception, and human relationships. How do you choose the subjects and people you paint to address these themes?

I’ve always been fascinated by people. I love getting to know people and figuring out what it is about them that makes them uniquely them. This might’ve stemmed from my tendency to introspect and the desire to know more about myself - my early paintings were more centred around solitude and singular existence. I became increasingly fascinated by the way I related to different people, how they related to me, and the feeling of belonging that is foundational to humans as a social species. Evidently, the more emotionally invested I am in a relationship the more I want to paint about it. The subjects of my paintings are all people in my life, or once were. Whatever or whoever I spend a lot of time with eventually find their way into my paintings. 

Could you describe your creative process for one of your paintings, from the initial idea to the final brushstroke?

Paintings usually begin with a person I want to paint or a feeling I want to paint. A thought, perhaps, that lingers on my mind for a long time and that I still have fun thinking about. A recent painting of mine, “Summer in Toronto” began because I spent this summer hanging out with my friend Mandy a lot. We met as coworkers and grew closer as time went on. I went to her apartment a lot in the summer, where she lives with her partner and their dog, and we had many thought provoking and deep conversations. There is this giant window in their living room, and they have a striking yellow chair next to it. I knew I had to paint Mandy sitting in it. I took many candid photos of her for reference, and at first the painting might’ve been about her deep in thought, but Toronto had a crazy heatwave this summer. Gradually, my memories of talking to Mandy evolved to both of us just trying to sit still and find inner peace to stay cool. The actual painting process is a rather classical approach to painting. I make studies from the many reference images I took, once I find the composition that I want I begin painting it. This painting was 25x25 inches, a comfortable size to allow the viewer into the inner space of that moment, but not too big so as to emphasize the intimacy. Of course, colour considerations were all made centering around the yellow chair and being baked in the sun. 

You use oil as your preferred medium. What do you love most about oil painting, and how does it allow you to express your intentions?

Painting is painting and I love it all, but I choose oil painting as my primary medium because it allows for subtlety in a way that’s very different from others. Oil painting retains the precise colour I mixed and wanted the painting to be - acrylics, watercolour, and gouache all dry differently from the initial colours I put down. The process of oil painting is also helpful with my thinking process. The time it takes for the paint to dry means I can thoroughly finish a thought without worrying about my palette. At the same time, sometimes I have to move on from a painting because it’s too wet to be worked into. This forces me to take a break and come back to the painting with fresh eyes. So far I have not put too much texture into my paintings, but should that change in the future, oil painting is also a versatile medium that would allow for this. The buttery feeling of a thick oil painting is a joy I’ve yet to feel with other mediums. 

You also teach painting in private classes. Has the practice of teaching helped you advance in your own painting practice?

In the beginning, teaching forced me to articulate and materialize what I believed about painting. It was helpful because I’m a very methodical person, and understanding the reasoning behind something helps me remember it better and put it into action. It also lets me inside the mind of the people I was teaching to see where they were getting stuck, and how differently our brains worked. As time went on, teaching also revealed to me why people were drawn to my paintings in very specific painter terminology. There’s such a delicate balance between reason and emotion in painting for me, teaching has helped me organize and understand the way I think and if there are any blindspots. Of course, interacting with other people who are excited about painting also inspires very interesting discussions, and we can bounce ideas off of each other. 

What are your future projects or aspirations as an artist? Are there new themes or techniques you would like to explore?

Someday I think I would like to find a way to reinvent the way I think about painting. There are a lot of rules that I follow, and I’m slowly breaking free of them as I keep painting and growing as an artist. This is a process that can’t be rushed if I want it to be authentic. I’m currently fascinated by spatial perception and the way I translate what I see with my eyes onto a canvas. This means I’m challenging the role of reference photos in my work and where they might be clipping my wings instead of letting me fly, but at the same time, I don’t want to completely let go of something that does provide value in my process (e.g. it’s not always possible to have my friends pose for me whenever it suits my painting schedule.) Similarly, my work is very focused on colour and light right now, and not so much surface texture. I haven’t yet found a way to organically add texture into my work, but I do feel something stirring in me that might make it happen someday in the future. 

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To learn and see more of Caroline Ji's work, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.

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