Well-versed in the visual language of mythology, archetypes and metaphors, New York–based illustrator and animator Gaia Alari incorporates a hand-drawn method of creation that almost lets her imagery create itself. “Paper provides an anchor that allows me to explore,” she explains. “Even in my commissioned work, some corner remains mysterious, where the images almost slip out of my control.” Initially a student of medicine, Alari still kept developing art as a hobby until she realized that an artistic path was the one meant for her to follow. “I think that the discipline and way of thinking [I learned] from medicine allowed me to focus, rather stubbornly, on polishing my style and finding my voice,” she says, “no matter the hardships I had to face in doing so.” First, Alari moved in the circles of the fine art world, but when she attended exhibitions by Nathalie Djurberg and William Kentridge, both of whom work in motion, she found a way to express animation with her love of traditional art. “The fluidity of the images [held] the narrative element that I was looking for, and that allowed me to communicate the concepts I was exploring and the questions I was asking myself in a way that felt ‘cozier’ to me,” Alari explains. She still finds plenty of inspiration from contemporary fine artists like Nick Cave, Yoshitomo Nara, Wangechi Mutu, Grazia Toderi and Rachel Whiteread, to name a few—as well as Wendy Woon, leader of the educational programs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “I also love the playful darkness of medieval marginalia and folk art especially,” Alari says. “I see in those some widely understandable roots that allow my personal experience to broaden and the particular to become abstract—and, therefore, universal.”