What started as a recovery account on Instagram, about four years ago, quickly grew into something so much more. As I became transparent about my struggles with an eating disorder and mental health, after being sexually abused, this account became an avenue of guidance for others. Through this process I realized the disheartening need for support that was free of any fiscal burden that so often is unjustly required. My project, currently funded by a Mary Gates Leadership scholarship, aims to raise awareness while giving community and support to victims of sexual abuse. I contacted SARVA (sexual assault and relationship violence activists) on campus to receive volunteers to collaborate in my project. With their consent, I am drawing them with their eyes removed to create a conversation of the overwhelming number of individuals who've been assaulted. The censorship of the eyes allows a layer of anonymity for the volunteers as well as an unsettling feeling to the viewer. I am drawing them using ink on a 5”x7” aquaboard. I meet with each survivor to present a healing opportunity where they can disclose their story to me. During this time, I take their picture and use that as my reference to draw them, capturing a powerful moment in that meeting. As of right now I have ten portraits to show, but underneath those ten portraits are hours of research, late studio nights, and forty previous paintings. I have written numerous essays just on Jenny Saville, but also researched Paula Rego, Marlene Dumas, Tracy Emins, and more. This process is crucial as it informs my practice and keeps me knowledgeable about previous works. With that said, there is another component to my project; psychology. These situations are extremely sensitive and my previous studies and research in psychology have been invaluable.

My pieces are an exploration of how characters form manga and comics intersect with my own identity. The first piece is called the “Power of Uchiha Snake”. I am the character Uchiha Sasuke from Naruto who possesses the Uchiha bloodline special visual power Sharingans. The second piece is called “Death to Wayne(Wei)”. Adapted from the Deadpool movie poster. Wayne, and “Wei” is the last character of my Chinese name. Deadpool has super power of infinite regeneration. Although he runs his mouth, no matter how mad he gets his enemies, they won’t be able to destroy him. For these two pieces, I used the techniques and visual patterns of capturing the geometric shapes of human figures, and the rules of composing art works, and analyzing the shading to get how the light hits on the figures as well as the perspective analysis. Figure study is when human figures exist visually as geometric shape, proportions of figures are supposed to be treated as lines, lines of geometric shapes. In terms of the study of art history, European art is directly derived from the Christianity trinity. The triangle pattern is the central balance of human figure, as human figures are derived from the God himself. The lines form the geometric balance and then the balance itself forms human figures into perfect combination. The light determines the perspective significantly for the dimensions closer to the viewer are thicker while the further side of the dimension are relatively vague in visual. It creates the perspectives of human figures on the drawing. In the photographic term, it’s called “depth of field”. This enables the figures on paper to be dimensional and closer to real human figures. My conclusion of the drawings as present, is that human eyes is an interesting tool, that gifted the mankind.

This work is an investigation into the multifacited world of fairy tales. Through history, fairy tales and fables have been collected from story tellers, edited, and presented to the world in print. Through this process, tales with dark or racy subjects are painstakingly polished, added on to, and moralized. Many were warped and nearly completely overwritten to fit within the views and biases of the collectors and editors. Hundreds of years down the line and through the Disney lens, fairytales are mostly known by their bright, cheery exteriors, with little of their original content to be found. Through the use of stage design and illustration, I worked to create an environment that would display this dichotomy. Once installed, the work creates a bright fairy tale forest for the audience to enter. When they turn to exit, they are faced with the dark underside of the fairy tale world. 

I have always wanted to see someone that looks like me in a museum. This desire to be represented in society is something people fight for. I want to create work that empowers cultures and features that are not represented. I want to depict those that have been colonized in the same way their colonizers have been historically celebrated, through paintings. This series of paintings will go beyond just my culture but others that share similar wounds and scars from colonization. Addressing problems that come with colonization such as assimilation, patriarchy, cultural disconnect. The process of my paintings is finding a model that inspires me to paint. The model will most likely have features that don’t follow these western idealizations. Then I look into the model’s heritage and find clothing, embellishments, weaponry from their culture with the use of the Burke museum’s data base. I begin to draw the model adorned with these objects. Hours of preliminary work goes into composing these objects with the model. I will have set up the model in a pose that was popular in western paintings depicting royalty or power. I want to flip these preconceived notions of these colonized nations on its head. I invite the discussion of cultural identity and colonized beauty. The goal is to preserve these cultural aesthetics that were pre-colonial. I want to come out of this project with a deeper knowledge of who I am. I also want to have a body of work that provides the viewer insight into my culture and many other cultures that lack representation.