Annie Wong, or Headexplodie, is a dynamic mixed-media artist who creates popping, eye-catching illustrations, stop-motion animations, and sculptures.
Since graduating from the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco with an MFA in 2D/traditional animation and stop motion, she has continued to produce works in various media. Her playful GIFs earned her the title of Giphy Featured Artist with more than 28 billion views. Her illustrations, which are often made in collaboration with works from other creatives, resulted in her being recognized by the New York Times in 2019 in its “The Best of Illustration.” Her stop-motion animations, which often contain inspirational, politically conscious messages, earned her the Excellence in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Recently, Annie has also been engaging in speaking events where she teaches the public about the importance of self-care. Her multi-genre expertise, bubbly artistic style, and passion for helping emerging artists made her a perfect interviewee for Exposition Review’s “POP!” issue.
Annie spoke with Expo Comics & Film Editor Lauren Gorski and intern Michael Ahn about how she discovered her love of puppetry and stop-motion animation, what is the right medium for her work, and the importance of self-care.
Exposition Review: How would you describe your beginnings as an artist and how you came to find the artist’s life?
Annie Wong: I was one of those kids that always loved drawing and any kind of craft projects, and I just never grew out of it. That’s the short answer. I grew up as an only child for the first thirteen years of my life until my sister was born. So I had a lot of time alone in my bedroom with craft supplies and playing imaginary games in my backyard. I just have always really enjoyed creativity. It was my favorite way to process my emotions and express myself, especially as a shy kid who didn’t enjoy using words as much because I was very shy around other people. So after graduating from high school, I chose art as a major to focus on. I went to art school in the Bay Area in California. Ever since then, I have been trying out a lot of different mediums and ways to be creative, as well as pursuing the business side of creativity.
ER: How did the community you found in the Bay Area differ from the one you experienced in Texas?
AW: In the Bay Area, there are a lot more creatives. It’s a lot easier to run into someone who’s also doing some form of creative work. I grew up in San Antonio in Texas. It was a pretty big metropolitan city, so there was definitely an art scene, a pretty decent network of galleries and museums and art walks. But it was still weird to be an artist in South Texas. I don’t think it was the default or what was expected. But out here I think it’s a little less weird. I think people maybe even expect it a little bit.
ER: As a student at the Academy of Art University, you switched from visual development to stop-motion. Did that pivot come naturally?
AW: Yeah, that switch came really naturally to me. Before I went to grad school to study visual development, which is basically illustration for animation, I was working as an art director at Children’s Fairyland, which is the local storybook children’s park here. I worked in the puppet theater. That’s what planted the seed for miniature storytelling and performance through puppetry.
I was aware of stop-motion animation as an option at Academy of Art, but it was kind of underground, sort of hidden. Most animation majors go into 3D animation or 2D hand-drawn. I was somewhere in the middle of my studies [when I thought], “Let me just take one class because I just really want to,” and I finally in the program had an elective where I could [take a stop-motion class.] It was with Norm DeCarlo, who worked on Nightmare Before Christmas. The class was really small. It was only me and three other grad students, and we worked on a very, very short film together that summer. It’s like I got bit by the bug. I was like, “Oh, this is what I’m meant to do.”
ER: Which is a nice transition to thinking about how stop-motion and puppetry focus on character design. As an artist, how do you see your relationship to the characters you create?
AW: I love characters so much. I got a taste of what it’s like to be an actor and a performer through my experience with the puppet theater, and stop-motion animation—or maybe any kind of character animation—is like a slow-motion version of puppetry. I really have to put myself in the place of the character. I’ve thought about things like a character’s intentions and motivations or their story arc. If I’m not feeling that, then the performance is not going to feel authentic. It’s just also a fun vehicle to explore, like, what are the different flavors of happy or sadness or any relatable human emotion.
ER: Do you have a favorite medium for your work, whether it’s a still, GIF, short film, maybe even an in-person gallery exhibit?
AW: It changes from project to project. What I’ve been enjoying lately is just being able to have conversations about something that I make. Sometimes that can happen easier if it’s an animation that I posted online because there’s a comment section. People can share their thoughts about it.
I’ve been having a lot of fun lately with live storytelling and public speaking. I’ve had the opportunity to do a few slideshow presentations where I get to share my work and talk about the work in a different way than just seeing an animated GIF. Then to be able to do a Q&A or have people come up to me afterwards and talk about how they related to something I said. I’ve been finding that super fun, getting that kind of back-and-forth engagement.
Annie built a 3×3″ miniature replica of the NPR Tiny Desk office for an art show! Watch her give a little tour of some of the pieces inside.
ER: When you’re in the beginning phase of your projects, how do you decide which material is the right one to use?
AW: My work is very much about different materials. What I like about that is I always have a phase I call R&D, where I’m just allowing myself at least a day to experiment and try different things. [In my studio,] I have shelves full of so many different things: paint and paper, and clay and wire, and wood and foam. So when I’m coming up with an idea, I might have initial inklings of maybe I’ll try this in clay, or maybe I’ll try this in wood. I have to touch it, I have to feel the weight of it, I have to see if it’s going to work with gravity in the way that I want [it] to. So there’s a lot of problem-solving, like engineering problem-solving, that has to be done. And then there’s also the aesthetics of it—is this material going to give me the look that I want, depending on what the tone is. It becomes a conversation with the material. And then it’s magical when the thing clicks and you’re like, “Oh, this combination of materials works very well.” I have to go through that process first, and I have to look at it. And then when it looks back at me and we’re happy with each other, I’m like, “All right, let’s do this.”
ER: You often collaborate with artists from different media, such as musicians, while also working with writers to create illustrations for their works. What are some of your takeaways from working with artists from different backgrounds and skill sets?
AW: It’s a fun excuse to get to know different people. That’s how I like to learn about people. If I have a project to work on with them, especially if it’s not a medium that I specialize in, I get to learn more about, like, my partner who I’ve collaborated with who works in audio. I’ve learned a lot about things like microphones and Foley, sound effects, and things like that.
Ultimately, though, what I love about it is, especially in the field of animation, it’s very, very collaborative because just to do all of the parts on your own would take forever, and I don’t have that time. So I love working with other people that are specialized in actual visual effects and video editing or audio or hand lettering—just all of these other things.
ER: Your works often contain messages of political and social consciousness, such as “Ovary Actions,” which is a great pun, or GIFs like the one you made for the 2016 election. When did you decide to use your art to spread awareness of important social concerns?
AW: A lot of the art that I make is very autobiographical. For example, I’ve been doing a lot of self-portraits lately. Because a lot of times these are topics that I care about, it’s just going to come out in some form or another in the things that I make.
Art is a great way to process your feelings around contentious issues, or just things you care about. It’s also kind of just a part of my Aquarius Sun being naturally invested and interested in things that affect humanity. That’s just how I process it and how I want to open up conversation about things hopefully in a way that is accessible, especially through humor. Sometimes it’s easier to laugh at something than dive into what might feel like a very aggressive dialogue.
ER: There’s also a lot of your recent work that focuses on self-care. What advice do you have for other artists who may need that reminder to take care of themselves?
AW: It’s hard for a lot of people to feel like they can take a break. But as someone who’s lived the art life for a while, it just becomes a sort of health maintenance thing to do to do things like get an adequate amount of sleep, exercise, go to therapy when I need to—that’s just mental hygiene. Most importantly, having self-compassion. Because ultimately for me, I want to have fun with what I’m doing, and I can’t do that if I am super stressed out all the time.
Also, because I love so many artists, what you do is really valuable, even if the culture doesn’t recognize it. All you do is special and unique, and only you can do it because it’s coming out of you. So you have to take care of yourself so that you continue to do it because other people like me need to hear or see or consume the thing that you’re making.
ER: I think Wayne White also uses the term “art life.” You’ve mentioned the documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing about artist Wayne White in interviews in the past, so I know that his work, along with Pee-wee’s Playhouse, has been a source of influence for you.
AW: I think about in that documentary, how he’s, like, playing the banjo or something like that. And in his talk, the camera is following him through all of the different things he does. I think about that a lot, about how what’s been healthy for me is to just proclaim I am an artist, and I’m living this art life. To just think about how that permeates into all these other areas of life. It’s a holistic thing. [For] a lot of the artists that I admire, it’s a way of looking at life. So I’ve been trying to play around with multiple forms of expression, trying to find ways that everything can be a little bit more fun or a little bit more magical or a little bit more surreal and playful.
ER: Are you, for example, bringing more music into your life?
AW: So for Christmas, I gifted myself this electric ukulele. When I was in high school, probably like a lot of teenagers or people coming of age, music can become a part of their identity or like a really, really exciting thing. I think I kind of lost that for a little while, and over the past few years, I’ve been trying to bring that back and remember I used to have so much fun playing guitar with my high school best friend. I used to just lay in bed, listening to records and reading the lyrics. How can I make time for that and try to enjoy music as an active experience and not just put it on in the background to pass the time. Also trying to do it myself, just as a hobby, helps me to be more empathetic to those artists and get into their mindset.
ER: That reminds me of something that I saw on the internet: The Oatmeal’s “Creativity Is Like Breathing.” It talked about how, as an artist, it’s important to inhale and exhale. As a creative, you can’t just create and create and exhale all the time without also inhaling other work from other artists.
AW: It’s also just a great way to take a break from yourself. So much of my work is about “How can I convey this message?” and “How’s the audience going to receive it?” and I’m making all these decisions. So when I start jamming with my friends, I don’t think about any of that stuff at all. It’s just a totally different way to engage that gives me a break from myself.
ER: Is there any advice you would give your students or other emerging artists?
AW: The biggest realization that I’ve had is the importance of trying to be part of a community, especially when you are in the beginning trying to build your body of work or your career. There was a time in my life where I didn’t prioritize spending time nurturing my relationships. That made it harder to endure the challenges of living that art life. But now that I am a little bit better at that, and I’m surrounded now by more artists, it feels really nice to not feel alone in this difficult endeavor.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.