Chinese zodiac artwork by Silka Huang
Born and raised in Guangzhou, China, Silka Huang followed her passion and started studying art in 2009. In 2017, she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in China and started working as an artist and an art teacher.
When she was 23, Silka moved to Australia and has since continued her work as an artist and teacher where she specialises in Chinese painting and multimedia illustration.
Silka’s works have featured in a range of different exhibitions, including the XAFA Excellent Artworks Collection 2016, Chinese Young Artists Exhibition 2017, and Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Award 2020.
Her works are displayed at respected galleries worldwide, and we’re proud to have partnered with her for the Chinese zodiac commemorative birth certificate range.
Silka describes her zodiac range
Queensland is the state of sunshine, nature and different cultures, and I feel very honoured to design this range that embodies this.
Harmony, multiculturalism and nature are the underlying themes of this range.
In this range, I paired 12 traditional Chinese zodiac animal signs with different plants that you can find in Queensland, and I put these combinations together in different scenarios. For example, forest, farm, or even the sky!
As for the medium and technique, I combined Chinese painting, Chinese ink and Chinese colour and watercolour. When you look at the designs, you can see the traditional Chinese painting style, but it’s more vibrant and delightful.
In every design, I put the Chinese characters and the English title ‘Year of the Animal’. For the Chinese characters, it is a combination of the hour character and the character of the animal itself because, in Chinese culture, Chinese zodiac signs do not only represent personality, but also hours of the day.
What I love most about this range is the feeling I get when I look at them. I can see that the animals are living and playing very happily in nature and I feel very harmonious, happy, and comfortable. This is the feeling that I wanted to create for when parents when they look at their baby playing in nature. In every design, I captured the very typical behaviour of these animals to represent these concepts in a good way.
I hope this range can showcase the lovely spirit of Queensland and I hope this can be a beautiful gift to Queensland families.
