Left and Leaving Statement
Left and Leaving
Left and Leaving is a very personal series of work that explores the choices made and the roles assumed by Chinese immigrants, their descendants, and how that relates to the myth of the Model Minority.
The term “Model Minority” coined and surfaced in popular media for over 50 years, is often prescribed to Asian minority groups in the West who are frequently cited as having success in academics and economic status. Though seemingly complimentary it has also been viewed as a term that dehumanizes those belonging to Asian minorities, minimizes individual contributions, and at its worst, it is used to create a wedge between other racial minority groups – particularly in the rise of Asian hate stoked by the COVID 19 pandemic.
If I am being honest to my personal Chinese immigrant experience, the tenets and ideals of the Model Minority are criteria I am complicit in applying to myself. In Left and Leaving the choice of choosing the ideals of the Model Minority as a means of belonging are explored as are the costs of those choices. My hope, as aligned with the broader context of my creative practice, is that this exploration and subsequent discussion will surface meaningful commonalities between the Chinese immigrants’ choices to achieve belonging and that of the viewer of the work. It is my deeply held belief that what we all have in common in our humanity far outweighs the details we cling to.
The works being developed for Left and Leaving take their visual inspiration from the memorial photos used in Chinese cemeteries, and the symbol rich masks used in Peking Opera. The neutral, documenting aesthetic of the memorial photos represent the parts of self that have been allowed to pass away in order to belong. This contrasts with the colorful “masks” that have been painted on. These painted “masks” inspired by the makeup application of Peking Opera, have been further transformed by the emotional charge of abstract expressionism to symbolize the emotional truth of what it feels like to strive for the ideals of the Model Minority. Nude torsos are used as the representative under layer of the works to provide an honest and accessible depiction of each subject whose experience is being explored to visualize the different relationships with the myth of the Model Minority, and in more universal terms, the shape of the journey to belonging.
已離開了和正在離開的
《已離開了和正在離開的》是一個非常個人化的系列作品，探討了中國移民及其後代所做的選擇和扮演的角色，以及這與模範少數民族的神話之間的關係。
如果我對我個人的中國移民經歷誠實的話，模範少數民族的信條和理想是適用於我自己的標準。在《已離開了和正在離開的》中，我們探討了選擇模範少數民族的理想作為一種歸屬感的代價。我希望，與我創作實踐的廣泛背景一致，這種探索和隨後的討論將在中國移民獲得歸屬感與作品觀眾的選擇之間揭示出有意義的共同點。我堅信，我們人類中的共同點遠遠超過了我們所堅持的細節。
正在為《已離開了和正在離開的》開發的作品的視覺靈感來自於中國墓地中使用的紀念照片，以及京劇中使用的富有標誌的面具。中立地在記錄著審美紀念照片，代表著為了歸屬感的自我部分而被允許消逝。已經被塗上的彩色『面具』做了一個對比。這些彩色『面具』的靈感來自於京劇的化妝使用方法，被抽象地表現主義的情感轉換來象徵著一種為模範少數民族理想奮鬥情緒化的真相。裸露的身體被用來代表作品的底下層，以誠實和容易理解的描寫方式來探索每個主題的經驗，以可視化與模範少數民族神話的不同關係，以及比較普遍的說法和歸屬感之旅。