GENRE SUN
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Nov 11
- 3 min read
Genre Sun is an illustrator and designer based in the United States. She works mostly with digital collage, building images from small pieces, symbols, and notes. Many ideas come from personal conversations or moments that stay with her. In the series "Bridging Two Worlds", she looks at the different ways she and her husband understand the same situations. In "The Dream of Ordinary People", she follows the stories and drawings of her young nephew, letting his imagination guide the composition.
Q: Your illustrations are full of small symbols and visual jokes. Do you remember the first time you hid one on purpose?
A: I think it started when I realized that drawing could be a quiet way of talking. The first time I hid a small symbol, it was just for myself — a little cat figure tucked behind a tree. It felt like leaving a secret trace of emotion in the image. Since then, I’ve enjoyed adding these details as a way to invite people to look closer and find their own meanings.
Q: “Bridging Two Worlds” feels both intimate and analytical. Was it hard to turn something so personal into an image?
A: Yes, it was. That piece came from a real emotional space — the feeling of living between cultures and languages, and trying to connect them visually. Translating that into an image meant stepping back and looking at my own experience as both the subject and the observer. It was painful at times, but also freeing, because drawing helped me understand what words couldn’t express.
Q: You often balance reality and imagination. Where do those two usually meet for you?
A: They meet somewhere in memory. Reality gives me the structure — the things I’ve seen or felt — and imagination reshapes them into something more fluid and emotional. When I draw, I’m not trying to escape reality; I’m trying to soften its edges and see how it could feel if we looked at it with wonder again.
Q: “The Dream of Ordinary People” came from a child’s ideas. What did that project teach you about creativity?
A: It reminded me that creativity isn’t about complexity, but about honesty. Children imagine freely because they’re not afraid of being wrong. Working on that project helped me unlearn some of my adult hesitation — to draw faster, think less, and trust the first spark of an idea. There’s something pure about that way of seeing.
Q: Your work celebrates curiosity and close looking. Do you ever build stories around details that others might miss?
A: All the time. I love the idea that a tiny object or expression can carry an entire story if you look long enough. Sometimes a corner of the composition tells me more than the main subject. Those details are like quiet whispers — they keep the image alive for me even after it’s finished.
Q: When a piece finally feels alive to you, what usually makes that happen?
A: It’s usually a small, unexpected moment — a brush line that falls in just the right place, or a color that suddenly breathes warmth into the whole piece. It’s when the drawing starts to surprise me, like it knows something I don’t. That’s when I feel it’s alive.