Kelly Zou
Fragments of Memories: The Letter to Stay by Kelly Zou is a quiet, intimate comic about navigating depression and an emotionally abusive relationship while applying for a Global Talent Visa — and finding strength through friendship, memory, and the act of choosing to stay.
Through dreamy watercolour sequences, Zou explores a difficult time in her life with sensitivity, vulnerability, beauty and even humour.
How did you start making comics?
I was always curious about comics, but initially felt uncertain about working with panels and sequencing. That shifted when I joined Dr Sarah Lightman’s course Drawing Graphic Narratives, which opened up a completely new way of thinking about storytelling. Through that experience, I began to see comics not as a fixed structure, but as a flexible language, a space where image, text, memory, and emotion can move together. Since then, comics have become a core part of my practice, a way of working through lived experience and giving form to things that are difficult to express directly.
How do you approach storytelling in comic form?
My approach to storytelling is fragmentary and intuitive. I often begin with small moments or images, allowing memories to surface gradually rather than constructing a linear narrative from the outset. I’m less interested in describing events directly, and more focused on conveying emotional truth — how an experience feels from the inside. I use repetition, fluid brush marks, and metaphor to create a sense of rhythm and atmosphere, allowing meaning to emerge through accumulation rather than explanation.
How did you balance the personal aspect of reflecting on and processing an abusive relationship, with the practical aspect of making a comic?
I needed weekly counselling to work through my memories and emotions, to understand what had happened without becoming overwhelmed by it. That process became a way of structuring the work. Rather than documenting events literally, I focused on translating the emotional truth, the feeling beneath the fog. Drawing allowed me to approach difficult experiences at a slight distance, using metaphor and fragmented scenes to hold what felt too complex or too raw to describe directly. Balancing the personal and the practical meant finding a form that could contain the intensity. The comic became that container, it was a space where memory could be revisited, reshaped, and made visible without needing to explain everything.
Tell us a bit about your process (ideas, sketching, drafts, the medium, analogue/digital)
I begin with loose doodles, allowing memories to surface as fragments rather than forcing a fixed narrative too early. These fragments gradually gather into sequences, where connections between images and text start to emerge. I work primarily with watercolour on paper, drawing and writing directly onto the surface so that image and text develop together. The fluidity of the medium reflects the shifting nature of memory. Once the drawings are complete, I scan them and refine the sequencing and pacing digitally in InDesign, shaping the final structure of the comic.
What comic artists/illustrators are you inspired by?
Sydney Smith, Brecht Evens, Marjane Satrapi, Sabba Khan
What do you listen to when you are working?
Classical music
What works of art – comics, literature, film – resonated with you when you were going through the events of The Letter to Stay?
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh
Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself And China by Jung Chang
Arrival by Shaun Tan
Educated by Tara Westover
What are you working on now?
I’m currently expanding The Letter to Stay into a longer graphic memoir which traces back to my childhood in China and follows my journey to Scotland. The work explores how family history, migration, and emotional silence shape one’s sense of identity and belonging. Moving between past and present, the memoir brings together fragmented memories, using watercolour and metaphor to reflect how experience is felt rather than simply recalled.
About Kelly
Kelly is a Chinese visual artist and storyteller based in Edinburgh. Her work spans drawing, painting, and graphic narrative, and often explores memory, migration, emotional resilience, and the quiet complexity of lived experience. She is drawn to the moments that exist between silence and survival — how people endure, remember, and rebuild.
Kelly’s work has been exhibited across the UK, and she has collaborated with scientists on art–science projects exploring neuroscience, psychology, and the immune system. Many of her stories are deeply personal, but they also speak to broader questions of belonging, displacement, and the hidden emotional lives we carry. Through intimate pacing, shifting time, and the rhythm between image and text, Kelly gives form to what is often invisible — and honours the quiet strength that drawing can offer.
See more of Kelly’s work here.