Artist Statement:
Containing and letting go
Through my art-making process, I reach an understanding of what I am trying to contain and let go of the subjects. The artworks express my feelings while they help me understand what the subjects really mean to me.
As a third culture kid, I never had a place that I could call "home." Moving from city to city, country to country was not a major surprise to me, but every time I moved, I had to adjust myself and adapt to the new environment and new community. The theme, displacement and dissociation, was derived from the transitioning moments. I explore this through simple abstract shapes and lines. The small grey-toned shapes represent the oddness, being disconnected from the surroundings. The bigger shapes represent the new environment and the lines represent the complicated feelings.
My grandparents' town was the only place that stayed the same for the past 15 years and was where I could always go back whenever I visited Korea. However, this town is under redevelopment and soon will be gone. The theme, permanence and impermanence, was derived from my mixed feelings of letting go of my most personal and permanent place, my grandparents' town, and accepting the reality. I explore this through subjects that are rigid and seem long-lasting, like the walls, alleyways and stairs from the town. The act of capturing the scenes of the town through the painting makes the memory and feelings permanent. However, the textures and composition of the artworks depict impermanence through dripping and demolishing forms. The textures and colors are explored through materials such as charcoal, soft pastels and oil paints.
Another subject that I have been working with is nature. Whenever I travel or just walk around my neighborhoods, I am always drawn to the flowers and plants and have to take photos of them. This might be because of my background of living in a tropical region, Malaysia, or it might be just because I am attracted to the aesthetics of nature. In my work, I experiment with different surfaces such as yupo paper, hemp cloth and clay to approach the subject in different ways.
For my past works, I explored various subjects and themes such as culture, abstraction and landscape using mixed media. These works became the stepping-stones for shaping my art-making process. Thus, art is important to me because it's a medium that helps me understand myself deeper in relation to my background, surroundings and the world.