Statement
How do I explore the position of women in contemporary society through painting and performance? And how do I navigate through the world and an East Asian woman in the west? I think identities are complex, I was born and raised in Zibo, Shandong, North East China. I came to London when I was 18 in 2014. My childhood and upbringing was in a conservative, small city whilst the past 10 years have been spent in the heart of western society in liberal, multicultural London. Having left home allows me to reflect on my past from the outside and unravel the puzzles within.
At the core of my practice is a journey into the essence of everyday existence, encompassing the natural world and the intricacies of human experience. Born during the one child policy and raised in a tight family unit has left an indelible mark on me. My mother comes from a family of goods traders and runs her own local shop. As a rare example of a female business owner I have witnessed first hand her need to be resilient within a patriarchal society. My father withdrew from the business 10 years ago. He came from a farming background and found the hustling for new business and the drinking culture did not suit him so he returned to farming, just like his father. The pursuit of one’s passion and a resolute honesty upholds the the core of my practice.
I am always aware of where I am and how this is not where I was born. additionally, that I am an artist that happens to be woman but western art history has often been seen via the male gaze. Inspired by European women artists from the 17th and 18th century I desire to further engage the questions: what is a woman? How do we construct our identity? Especially when expanded under the queer umbrella. I embrace my queer Identy and am influenced by drag performance, cabaret and theatre. Using myself as a model, I explore through painting and performance the position of women in contemporary society and pop culture. I am interested in the definition of beauty and what does it take to make a woman? Experiencing society’s many ‘rules and regulations’ for women and having suffered severe acne from childhood into adulthood causing me to be self-conscious of my appearance has fired my exploration of makeup, fabric, wigs and costumes to construct the fictional idea of ‘the perfect woman’. It begs the question; how does this perfect woman move through society? Probing themes of power and identity and the dialogue between painting’s contemporary iterations and its history, I wish to investigate the nature of pictorial representation, its perception and interpretation, with the emotional response triggered and the potential for its reinterpretation and translation.
With one foot in the East and the other in the West, I am interested in symbols, especially references to my Chinese heritage and my life in London and Europe per se. To embrace my past and combine it with my present, I am creating my own symbols and code to embed in the work. My work explores the seen and the overlooked. Being an Asian woman living and working in London, I have felt overlooked, and othered or labeled with stereotypes, especially post covid. I believe in the importance of highlighting disadvantaged individuals, like the ‘Me too’ and ‘Black lives matter’ movements. In this way I hope I may contribute to a conversation that moves away from ‘us and them’.
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