Hanna Lee Joshi’s work feels like entering a soft dreamscape — where bodies are generous and shapes flow like liquid, and every curve brims with possibility. As a Korean-Canadian artist based in Vancouver, she brings the female form to life in sweeping gouache and coloured pencil compositions, reimagining how we carry space, light, and silence within.

Her figures aren’t mere silhouettes; they’re embodiments of autonomy. They stretch, fold, and reach, often with enlarged limbs and elongated fingers, as though she’s giving that inner self full rein to breathe outward. Through gentle yet bold hues, her women are both intimate and infinite — not bound by realistic colour, but liberated by gradient, gesture, and presence.

Joshi’s practice is deeply personal. She says her work explores the search for self-determination — autonomy over her mind, body, and spirit. Her creative process is a kind of therapy, a way to work through inner constraints and inherited roles. In interviews, she speaks openly about burnout, mental health, and even Graves’ disease, and how art became a space for her to reclaim her voice.

What’s powerful about her art is how quietly political it is. By rendering nude forms that are anonymous yet resonant, she reshapes tradition. In one series, she subverts the classical nude by using vivid gradients instead of flesh tones, offering what she calls “a more otherworldly aspect” to these women. Their faces are often understated — minimal or even faceless — but their gestures, especially their hands, carry meaning. She uses yogic mudras, symbolic postures that communicate more than words ever could.

For Joshi, representation isn’t just about shape — it’s about reclamation. Her forms whisper of healing older wounds and dismantling internalized misogyny. In her own words, she’s “constantly redefining how I see myself.”

Her 2022 show, “What Is It You Seek?”, felt like a turning point. It dug into questions of individuality and universal identity, exploring how our inner drives — conscious and unconscious — push us toward unfulfilled desires, uncertainty, and longing. In these works, viewers glimpse her interior landscape, as if wanderers in her mind’s terrain.

Despite the weight of introspection, there’s remarkable lightness in her work. Her figures hover, float, and engage with each other. They take space unapologetically, and in doing so, they invite us to take up space in our own bodies and psyches. Joshi honors strength without force, vulnerability without apology, and presence without perfection.

Her journey into art began in animation — she graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and worked for years as a storyboard artist. That background gives her work a unique cadence, a narrative flow even in stillness. She often ideates on paper, then experiments digitally before returning to analog mediums, blending color pencil, washes, and Photoshop to fine-tune her vision.

At its heart, her art whispers: you are allowed to be whole, messy, and radiant. Her visually lush, emotionally rich pieces don’t feel like static portraits — they feel alive, breathing, and constantly becoming. For Joshi, art isn’t just a mirror. It’s a map, a guide, a gentle hand telling us it’s okay to stretch out, to wave our arms, to take up space in the world.

If you’re ready to drift even deeper into her glowing universe, head over to hannaleejoshi.com and wander through her world firsthand. It’s where her newest pieces, quiet experiments, and evolving ideas live — a living gallery that keeps unfolding with every visit. Go explore, get inspired, and let her radiant figures guide you on your own creative path.