Quick on the Draw
Coming Soon…
“I don't want to live under fear, obeying [the military]. I could survive, but would be in fear, like every movement I would feel I don't have freedom, and I think I don't want that for myself,” says JC, a Karen illustrator, storyteller, and activist currently based in the Netherlands. In this conversation, recorded in Amsterdam, she recounts her personal and political story, one shaped by civil war, displacement, and visual resistance.
JC grew up in northern Yangon, where she was raised in a Karen community. Despite her ethnic background, she was largely unaware of Myanmar’s ongoing conflict. The country’s school system, she explains, taught only state propaganda, giving her a falsely rosy view of the nation’s condition. It was not until she moved to Thailand to be closer to her father—though circumstances prevented them from actually reuniting—that she began to understand the extent of ethnic conflict and military oppression. “Moving to [Thailand] kind of opened my eyes,” she says. Exposure to refugee camps along the border revealed a country at war with itself, a reality that she says made her angry and determined to learn what she could. And as she heard more and more stories about the Karen and other marginalized groups, JC felt a deepening sense of injustice.
After studying in a migrant high school offering a U.S.-based diploma, she earned a communications degree in Bangkok, motivated by a desire to become a journalist. A key turning point came during a course on Burmese politics taught by a former political prisoner. Through this class and her proximity to migrant workers, JC came to see storytelling as a way to fight systemic discrimination and bring dignity to marginalized communities. Though her degree focused more on marketing than journalism, she remained committed to narrative work, gravitating toward slower, but more emotionally textured forms of communication.
After graduation, JC returned to Myanmar during the country’s brief democratic opening. She was inspired by the sense of purpose, commitment and energy she saw in others who had also come back to help rebuild the country. JC joined a civil society organization focusing on indigenous rights and environmental protection that served Karen communities living in harmony with nature. That period of relative optimism, however, ended abruptly with the 2021 military coup. It halted her organization’s work, scattered families and friends, and left her questioning the fragility of the country’s democratic transition.
As protests became violently suppressed, and journalism became dangerous or impossible, visual art offered a safer and more flexible outlet for storytelling, and JC turned to illustration as a way to express the resistance, posting her artwork on her Instagram page. “By doing illustration, I feel like I'm contributing,” she says. “I'm giving a voice to people that needed to be heard.” She had started learning to draw digitally during the COVID-19 lockdown, finding inspiration in editorial art from media such as the New York Times. Friends and colleagues began asking her to illustrate their articles and reports, and she soon established a recognizable presence in Myanmar’s resistance art scene. “I saw the opportunity now to make my dream come true in a way,” she says. “It was my calling [at] that time.”
JC’s artistic process is deliberate. She avoids literal depictions, choosing instead to convey mood and feeling through conceptual imagery. “I always try not to show the story literally. I try to balance it between the emotional part and the fact.” She emphasizes the importance of leaving “some room to breathe,” so that viewers can bring their own emotions and interpretations to each piece. Her style is minimalist and abstract, with bold colors and simplified forms that resist cliché and victimization; it has been influenced by a wide range of illustrators, from Sarah Wong to the late Santic Gonçalves, but in the end, the most important thing for her is expressive clarity. “It's not about knowing how to draw realistically. It's about how to bring ideas [forth] visually,” she says.
Behind each piece of artwork, however, lies a heavy emotional burden. Because the intensity of her subjects—displacement, trauma, loss—can feel overwhelming. JC often needs breaks between projects. “A friend of mine said, ‘Do you ever do anything cute?’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t!’” she recalls with a laugh. Then there is the issue of survivor’s guilt, especially as someone now safe in Europe while friends, colleagues, and communities in Myanmar endure arrests, bombings, and displacement. “Part of you feel like you also need to live, and part of you also feel like I don't deserve that… because back home, people are not living,” she says sadly.
One piece she describes in detail in this regard is an illustration for a story in Kite Tales, a platform for intimate, first-person stories from Myanmar. This was for an article detailing the account of a pregnant woman who lost her twins while fleeing through the jungle. JC says the story haunted her—not just because of the tragic loss, but because of what it reveals about the hardships of female refugees, especially those who must give birth in the jungle without hygiene or medical support. Yet in her illustration, she took pains to avoid portraying the subject as a helpless victim; instead, she shows her with dignity and resolve, bathed in orange tones against a dark backdrop.
JC’s aesthetic choices are shaped by both personal and political considerations. she says her life in different cultures—living Yangon, Thailand, France, and the Netherlands—is reflected in her artistic style in that it is not grounded in a single culture. This gives her art a more universal resonance. She wants it to be accessible not just to Burmese audiences, but also to people from other contexts who may not understand Myanmar’s history but can still relate emotionally. “Emotions are universal,” she explains. “Everyone has this sadness, loss, revelation, and this love.” And indeed, her work has served as an entry point for some non-Burmese friends to learn about what’s now happening in Myanmar. She describes how her illustrations have prompted friends to ask questions, seek out films, and attend events. “Maybe if it is only just the news, then they couldn't relate it as much, but if it is through artwork, maybe they could relate it more.”
Throughout the interview, JC emphasizes that illustration is not just art—it is protest. It has “a loud voice.” She believes that visual art can amplify marginalized voices and keep global attention on Myanmar, especially as international media interest wanes. With this in mind, her ongoing collaboration with Kite Tales is especially meaningful because those illustrated narratives as both creative expressions and acts of defiance. “It's not just like ordinary news reports… it's like diaries,” she says.
As she waits for asylum in the Netherlands, JC continues to draw. She notes that her immigration status imposes limitations, but she remains committed to using illustration as her way of staying connected to the people and struggles she left behind, and that she will keep using illustration as a way to remain engaged with Myanmar’s resistance. “Since I cannot be there physically… it’s a way of me to stay contributing,” she says. “I wish [people] don’t forget about Myanmar.”