My history as a third culture kid and as a queer artist motivates me to create my own visual and imaginary universes. I am concerned with navigating themes of intimacy, identity and ecology by exploring existing patterns of the world around me. Through subdued colors and descriptive lines, my imaginary universes are equally filled with spontaneity and intricacies.
I find safety in creating alternate realities, where I can heal from past traumas, and bond with the land I create on. Through my drawings I share visions of futures with willing eyes, allowing it to evolve in my mind, finding space for reinterpretation. This imagining is not a rejection of old, but rather a re-envisioning of ancestral wisdom through a contemporary and intersectional viewpoint. As Adrienne Maree Brown says when talking about the infamous Octavia E. Butler’s work: “Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. I suspect that is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world.”
What are the vast ideologies and ethics that will guide these imaginings? How can envisioning bring these better futures into existence?
Through repetition of motifs and patterns, I honor folk traditions as well as my own spiritual journey, as my practice is seeped in deep meditation during the process of creation. The works are modes of regeneration for both the viewer and myself. My process allows me to tackle my identity on my own terms, while simultaneously giving me permission to escape from the weight and confines of these labels. The obsessive repetition of patterns facilitates redefinition and rediscovery of the same form. In addition to mixed media drawings and paintings, my strive toward interdisciplinary practices compels me to dabble in sculpture, performance, video, and more recently animation and augmented reality. Informed by art practices of artists like Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, and Julie Mehretu, I display my work in galleries and public spaces via installations and murals.
