statement

I am inspired by my experiences as a Chinese-Vietnamese-English (first generation) American living in a white-passing female body. My work is my way of understanding my identity and attempting to have some control over the world around me. My art comes out of personal, cultural, and ancestral memories, both lived and created. I continue to search to find a comfort in a transitional space while seeking to establish my history and reclaim my family’s. My current work grew out of the relentless apathy that came from moving back into my childhood home at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Previously, I looked extrinsically to find belonging; my work centered on liminal space in the hopes it would contain my true sense of home. Instead, while physically living in the only home I’ve ever known, I started looking intrinsically, seeing home existing already as something I’ve created rather than somewhere I had to find. I created a relief print series, in my head and in my home, based on Chinese papercuttings of young women to deal with my apathy, relationship with chronic illness, struggles with my career and sexuality, while trying to remain who I am and figure out who I am becoming as my life and world are in flux.   

My work appropriates from my multiracial heritage, recreating domestic scenes and revising objects to reflect the global imperialism that soaks my bloodline. My art is heavily influenced by the art historical canon, imagining traditional Asian art through the lens of the contemporary diaspora, existing with apathy, an over desire for connection with others, and a longing for self-acceptance. I transform home and vessels to create fictionalized retellings of my family history. There were no objects passed through the generations in my family; they are all lost to time and war, and the stories that are shared are losing their edges. I lean on print so I can give tangibility to these memories and produce multiple copies in the hopes that if one is lost, there are several more that can continue on. Printing these works is a reminder that nothing is new, the state it exists in just changes.