The Artists of ‘Beth’
By Nanchang Project
Beth, Nanchang Project’s newest upcoming piece, is a 12-chapter installment written by Nanchang Project Executive Team member, Xavier Huang. Based on Xavier’s own life, experiences, trauma, and struggles, the story follows a young Chinese adoptee, Beth.
Beth has always longed for a place to belong. Raised in a white Canadian household, far from her Chinese roots, she grows up feeling like a stranger in her own family. With parents who deliver cold indifference and siblings who offer little solace, Beth’s deepest desires for love are met with an unsettling mix of indifference and volatile anger, leaving her feeling unseen and unloved. A brief sense of connection emerges in Hwang-Woo, a fellow Asian student whose quiet presence offers a flicker of the connection she craves. But even this refuge is fragile, haunted by the pain she carries, threatening to unravel the fragile peace she finds.
Book 1 (Chapters 1–6) of Beth traces the formative years of a young woman searching for love, identity, and a sense of home. But how does one find solace when the very people meant to provide it are the source of her deepest wounds? And what happens when the fight for belonging leads to a relentless battle with oneself?
To bring Beth to you, Nanchang Project has engaged six individual artists to contribute to the visual translation of Beth. A brand new, unique piece of art was devotedly created for each chapter. Each artist approached their assigned chapter with deep attentiveness—reading, reflecting, and responding to the text with care. The result is a series of visual interpretations that do more than accompany the story: they expand it. This creative collaboration between writer and artist doesn’t just illustrate the narrative—it enriches it, becoming a shared experience in storytelling.
Let us introduce the artists behind these upcoming works, each of whom bring their own vision, insight, and vulnerability to this project.
Photo courtesy of Laura.
Laura Ts'ao (she/her)
Artist & Illustrator – Book 1 Chapters 1 & 2
Adoptee, 29
From Jiujiang; Living in Austin, Texas.
I'm an art director based in Austin, Texas, originally from Jiujiang, China, and raised in Colorado Springs. As a shy, introverted kid, art was how I made sense of the world as a transracial adoptee. Over time, my relationship with identity, belonging, and the complexity of adoption has continued to evolve. I've spent years unpacking the emotional layers of being adopted and reconnecting with my heritage on my own terms. I'm building a cultural identity that honors where I come from and reflects who I’ve grown into.
Instagram: @laura.tsao
Photo courtesy of Marigny.
Marigny Jian DeBlanc (she/her)
Artist & Illustrator – Book 1 Chapter 3; Book 2 Chapter 10
Adoptee, 27
From Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; Living in New Orleans, LA
Marigny Jian DeBlanc is a New Orleans based mixed media artist and Chinese adoptee from Wuzhou, Guangxi. For her, art was a first language—a way to navigate and make sense of a new world shaped by transition and complexity. Through her interdisciplinary practice, Marigny explores the tension between the known and the unknowable using art to explore reflection and reconciliation.
Her work spans a range of mediums and techniques, combining traditional materials with found objects. Layered compositions of translucency and opacity echo themes of identity, memory, and intersectionality. Each piece is a meditation on delicate complexities which invites viewers to linger in liminal spaces.
Marigny studied at an arts conservatory high school and later earned degrees in both interior design and fine art. She currently works as a designer at a firm in downtown New Orleans continuing to blend creative disciplines in both her professional and personal practice.
Photo courtesy of Alex.
Alex Seehuus
Artist & Illustrator – Book 1 Chapter 4; Book 2 Chapter 7
Adoptee, 25
From Wuzhou, Guangxi; Living in Phoenix, USA.
Born and raised in the Midwest, Alex recently made her move to Phoenix after graduating with a Bachelor's in Art. Her love for printmaking translates into her artwork, digitally and physically, though she also dabbles in illustration from time to time. While her personal artwork focuses on her life as an adoptee and related emotions, when she isn't creating she can be found enjoying various forms of pop culture, reading, and browsing antique malls.
Instagram: @acwhos
Website: acwhos.wixsite.com/acwhosportfolio
Photo courtesy of Jade.
Jade van der Zalm (国玉灿) (she/her)
Artist & Illustrator – Book 1 Chapter 5; Book 2 Chapter 8
Adoptee, 25
From Zhanjiang 湛江/广东; Living in The Netherlands
Jade is an digital illustrator who just really loves color! She illustrates for picture books and does color design for animated short films. Storytelling is a big part of her thought process and she always tries to add a story to everything she creates. Jade loves to travel and let herself be inspired by all the beauty the world has to give.
When she is not illustrating she loves to cook (and eat!), read, go bouldering or cuddle with her two adorable Norwegian forest cats.
Instagram: @yu.niq
Website: jadevanderzalm.com
Photo courtesy of Emmalia.
Emmalia Ning (she/her)
Artist & Illustrator – Book 1 Chapter 6; Book 2 Chapter 12
Adoptee, 25
From Guangzhou, Guangdong; Living in Brooklyn
Emmalia Ning is a Brooklyn-based painter who explores how the self is shaped by dreams, memories, and the unknown. Rooted in her identity as a transracial adoptee, her work reflects on the complexity of connections—with loved ones, within ourselves, and with those we may never know. Her practice centers on dreamscapes that reclaim the myth of the red thread of fate, using flowing lines to visualize bonds formed not by destiny, but acts of will.Emmalia expands her perspective through teaching and public art projects, including a 780 square-foot mural created in-collaboration with a residential institution supporting at-risk children and families.Emmalia graduated from Columbia University with a concentration in Visual Arts and currently dreams in her bedroom studio.
Instagram: @fakeartist.em
Tiktok: @fakeartist.em
Photo courtesy of Nicolette.
Nicolette Lēcy (国志高) (she/her/她)
Artist & Illustrator -- Book 2 Chapter 9
Adoptee
From Zhanjiang, Guangdong; Living in California, USA
Nicolette Lēcy (国志高) is a Chinese American adoptee, artist, and anthropologist whose artistic and academic work is rooted in her lived experience of Asian diaspora, non-consensual migration, and the entanglements of family, livelihood, and both sociocultural and natural environments. She was adopted from Zhanjiang, located in the southernmost part of the Chinese mainland, and raised in rural southwest Minnesota. She later attended college in rural South Dakota and completed multiple graduate degrees in Los Angeles County and California’s Central Valley. After teaching K–12 art, she worked in museums and higher education, leading educational programming and managing events before going on to teach undergraduate courses in anthropology, critical race and ethnic studies, and global arts. Her doctoral dissertation focused on reclaiming transracial adoptee epistemologies through the visual arts—a practice that also informs her own artwork, which explores alternate pasts, imagined futures, and the layered complexities of transracial and international adoption.Instagram: @nicolette.lecy; @nicolette.lecy.art
LinkedIn: Nicolette Lecy
Facebook: Nicolette Lēcy (国志高)
Photo courtesy of Xavier.
About the Author of Beth
Xavier (they/them) is an adoptee from Jiangxi who now lives on the unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ nations (colonially known as Victoria, B.C., Canada). X is a prolific writer and enjoys creative non-fiction, fantasy, and fiction writing. Through their work they explore their identity as an adoptee, parse their lived experience, and explore what it means to be human. They joined the Nanchang Project in 2023 and cherish the community they have discovered amongst the volunteers and adoptee community generally.
Table of Contents
Book 2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
The first six chapters (Book 1) will be released weekly beginning Friday, July 25. The final six chapters (Book 2) will be released weekly in early 2026.
The views expressed in blog posts reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the shared views of The Nanchang Project as a whole.
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