Carl Jung once said that the majority of his patients were not suffering from any definable disease, but a more seething existential crisis of not knowing their place in the world. Nowhere is this more palpable than for the youth of today. In the last few years, I created a series of ‘Memento Mori’ portraits, depicting a series of characters in my life who were undergoing depression or anxiety. This portrait is of a person very close to me who, having been raised in a Vietnamese immigrant family, has experienced all the challenges that come with a difficult and tumultuous upbringing. As a journalist, he works in an arena fuelled by tension, and has gone on to thrive by embracing the challenges he has faced.