Ariel Cheng Kohane emerges into the comic world with a distinct voice, blending her Asian and Jewish pride into her creative endeavors. Inspired by a variety of cultures, Ariel’s work is a celebration of duality, identity, and the freedom that art provides.
Ariel’s comic self portrait
Born and raised in the suburbs of Boston, Ariel’s multiracial and multicultural upbringing influenced her creativity from the start. Ariel is the daughter of a Chinese American mother who converted to Judaism and a Jewish father, each with their own influential family histories. Her mother infused elements of Chinese culture into their home, celebrating traditions like the Chinese New Year, attending Chinese dance recitals, and making visits to New York’s Chinatown to visit Ariel’s great grandmother. As the son of Polish Holocaust survivors, Ariel’s father and his family added layers of resilience and history to Ariel’s identity.
“I’ve always been very proud of being Chinese and Jewish,” Ariel reflected. “It has influenced my art a lot.” Ariel’s parents cultivated her mixed identity by ensuring she was exposed to books that showed diverse characters and families. After discovering comics on her own like Babymouse and Amulet, Ariel fell in love with the way comics combined visual storytelling with writing.
While these stories offered representation, and her comics offered endlessly expansive worlds, high school was much more limiting. As she navigated her high school years, Ariel felt the pressure of binary identities imposed by others. Creating her own comics offered Ariel an outlet to explore her identity on her own terms. “It took me time to realize how I wanted people to understand me,” she recalls. “But I know. And my loved ones know. And it’s good enough.”
Ariel continued to embrace comics as a medium for self expression. Her passion for visual storytelling flourished, leading her to create her own comics during the pandemic—a time when she sought solace in the world of webcomics. This passion culminated in her enrollment in the inaugural class of Boston University’s Visual Narrative program, where she honed her skills and developed her unique artistic voice.
Ariel’s artistic journey matured greatly during her time in the program. It was here that she began to explore her identity through storytelling even more in depth, often featuring characters who grapple with their own cultural dualities. “A lot of the stories that I tell feature characters who are biracial or multicultural in some fashion,” she explains. “I realize that both sides are meant for them. This represents me as well.”
Her thesis project, a historical fiction graphic novel titled Hai Noon, delves into the lives of Chinese people and Jews in the Wild West. The comic confronts broader themes around the complexities of identity, while also highlighting unique aspects of Jewish history. “A lot of the time people think about Jews coming in from Ellis Island, “ Ariel explained. “I didn’t realize how many Jews were already here and living during the Wild West as merchants and lawyers. I got to explore a lot of this history in my comic.”
Hai Noon draws inspiration from early 2000s adventure films. “I thought a fun twist would be to make a western where the protagonist was a woman,” she says, emphasizing the importance of representation. As she developed her main character—a strong, independent, Chinese and Jewish woman who seeks revenge for the murder of her parents, Ariel found the comic to also be an opportunity to create Jewish joy.
“It’s a combination of comedy, drama, and absurdity while tugging at our heartstrings,” shared Ariel. “I wanted this to be fun. Right now especially, there is a lot of sadness in Jewish art. A lot of sadness in Chinese art. As an artist, it’s important to me to create something people enjoy.”
Ariel’s art is vibrantly creative and thoughtful with an infusion of Asian and Jewish elements that are integral to her identity. Hai Noon is just the beginning. Ariel will continue to take us on comic adventures that bring joy to our hearts, visibility to our complex identities, and hope that our own world can have possibilities as limitless as her creations.
Stay up to date on Ariel and her work through her Instagram @ako.s_artwork and her website https://www.akosartwork.com,
