I created this piece in 2016 using colored pencils and sharpie on paper.

This piece began as an aimless doodle during one particularly boring summer afternoon, and quickly took on a life of its own.

I imagined that each stripe of the rainbow was like its own little universe, and they all ran parallel to each other like branches in a timeline. I represented the flow of time as a multicolored stream, neatly aligned through the past and present, then gradually dispersing into the uncertain future. I drew a mysterious feline figure standing in contemplation before several branching paths, facing away from the viewer to obscure its identity, and I started to wonder if this was another accidental self-portrait.

At the time, I had just started exploring my gender identity and felt very uncertain of myself. I think this drawing was an outlet for the vague restlessness within me that I didn’t know how to describe with words at the time. It represented a moment of sudden self-awareness, and the beginning of a long journey of self-discovery.