“In-between”
The power of time can affect a person regardless of where they are from and what culture they are born with. My current work draws ideas from the displacement of being born into Chinese tradition while growing up surrounded by the western culture of British controlled Hong Kong and spending half of my adult life as an immigrant in the United States. While embracing the dichotomy of culture, the forever evolving sense of uncertainty often calls for the constant negotiation of who I am and where I belong, continually learning the power of self-permission to allow my identity to exist.
This work creates a platform and visual language that gives me freedom to talk about my understanding of coexisting and the ability to re-contextualize my experience of being appreciated by some and being invisible to some, allowing me to cross the boundaries to talk about the intersection of cultures with a more direct meaning. I question the grey area about what gives one the right to claim what is theirs and what is not while confronting my inner struggle of feeling like an outsider of the country I was born and raised in, and still investigating the sense of belonging as a foreigner of the country I spend half of my life living in.
Regardless of place, the nature and land that are shared with us often look and feel the same. It helps us discover what we can grow into and build upon, and the space it creates allows for our basic understanding of emotions and interactions with others to grow. This becomes something that is fascinating and inspiring to me. While using timelessness of old Chinese motifs and colors to lay the foundation for the western abstraction of bold and colorful designs, the symbolism rests in between seriousness and whimsicality that mirrors the eastern philosophy and western freedom of thought. This work helps me mark and record the collision of the east and west, allows me to question the within and without in the nomadic life of culture, and facilitates searches for something that adapts well from one side to another.
