Ultimately, he decided on a visual that evoked a ceiling fresco, with a composition spilling out in all directions, a nod to both the film’s complicated, antic story and its cosmic philosophy. It’s as if the viewer were simultaneously staring at the heavens and into the center, Jean says, of a black hole or an everything bagel—an important symbol in the movie.

To capture all the intricate detail, Jean made drawings using his iPad’s Procreate app, and then pieced them all together and painted it in with Photoshop. Absent a suitable photo of star Michelle Yeoh for one of the images he had in mind, he asked his wife to pose in her stead. When Jean submitted the work to Kwan and Scheinert, he received only one request: to rework his rendering of the Pomeranian that plays a [small but special role] so that it had more “proper small dog energy,” he says.

In 2023, Everything Everywhere made history by winning seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress, and co-star Ke Huy Quan, who was born in Vietnam to a family of Chinese descent, won Best Supporting Actor. “I feel very fortunate to have been able to contribute to such an amazing film,” Jean says. “It’s been amazing to see the swelling of love for the film grow, and incredibly gratifying to see my poster used to represent [a] special moment for the Asian American community.”

Diana McClure is a writer and photographer based in New York City. Her essays, reviews and profiles have appeared in Art Basel magazine, Art21, Cultured, catalogs, monographs and other publications.

A version of this article appears in the fall/winter 2023 Visual Arts Journal.