Lily Onga
Lily Onga is a Thai artist, illustrator, and animator based in Tokyo, Japan. During her time at Chulalongkorn University and later Musashino Art University, she began producing picture books and developed original design logics. Her current practice centered on depicting man-made objects and staged spaces. These scenes hint at a sense of activity.
She is inspired by the process of making things, and the rich forms and details born out of cultural influences. Her works are warm, yet slightly mysterious and humorous with their own peculiar logic.
Weighted & Catalogued
Her preferred medium is colored pencil on paper. Lily observes antique shops, museum object collections, furniture in people’s homes, items in patisserie cases, and tools in craftsmen’s workshops. Her ideas begin as small sketches and handwritten notes, and grow through entirely hands-on, analog processes. Her works feel grounded and weighted, as if they could be placed or boxed.
Influenced by still-life painting and catalogue-style illustration, she documents objects and interiors while quietly inserting narrative, humor, and hidden systems. Boxes, tools, display cases, shops, and staged environments appear often in her work. Spaces designed to be looked at, arranged, and controlled, yet gently disrupted by imagination.
Warm and humorous
Warm and gentle tones of wood and fabric have become her signature palette. Her works are often described as humorous, tender, and oddly reassuring, like drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Tiny details, dolls, and figures appear in unexpected places, creating moments of quiet surprise. “They are my love letters to material culture,” Lily says, “and a slightly open window into the well-populated world inside my head.”