With sensitivity and tenderness, Starkie Mak has captured a tale of the immigrant experience, from the eyes of a child. Masterfully rendered with careful homage paid the children’s books that have touched the hearts of so many, Mak’s brush strokes and calligraphy evoke the turbulent emotions and difficulties a child must surely experience when having their little world upended, only to have a much larger and foreign world unfold before them.

In a heartbreaking parting, a child says goodbye to her family and is left with her imagination as guide. In search of a new life in a new land, a child retreats into the realm of fantasy. Through the devastating pain of childhood loss emerges the joy of a child’s triumph.

Starkie Mak is an artist and writer deeply in love with expressive drawing and painting. Her paintings have been exhibited across Europe and Asia. She illustrated for children’s magazine Cotton Tree and is an art teacher educating children. The classic novel The Secret Garden sparked her interest in literature. Literature and illustration are indispensable parts of her life. She studied creative writing at the University of Oxford.

She moved to Toronto from Hong Kong in 2018.

Starkie Mak's profile page