Artist Statement
The art I have accumulated in the past 7 months have been transcriptions and depictions of personal narratives which toys with accustomation and obsession, because painting is obsession itself. Working together these concepts and the physicality of my spatially aware installs, I hope to unstiffen the gallery setting. To spark interest from my audience for the process of art and the space it’s placed in, in order to make the experience equally beneficial to both the viewers and the maker, with the ultimate goal of making fine art more accessible.
Painting makes me feel powerful. I think it is a very sincere form of art. Oil painting introduced itself to me at the start of junior year and quickly took over my entire practice. Gradually I began to develop my paintings with the addition of live sessions and text for a more accessible entry point. At the beginning of senior year I had the chance to work with museum curator Elaine Gurian. It was the first time I had power within the gallery, which initiated my experimentation with installing art. To make my 2D painting eligible for the interactive show, I invited the couch and lamp as seen in the painting to the gallery, intending for the unidentifiable layers of paint viewers couldn’t necessarily relate to to transform into something they can purpose themselves onto. It was my first painting of the school year, and as the painting aged, so did the intention of the piece, as I began it with something I didn’t quite understand myself. I’m not going to say it is the title of the painting. The repeated phrase of I love you transcribed on the blanket is an object of fear, because the power it holds can easily result in disappointment and manipulation. Although simultaneously realizing the immaturity and limitations of this mindset, like the light of the lamp illuminating its own selection of an area on the pitch-black canvas.
The most recent piece is the bloody escalator painting, which was created during the week of the thesis install. It captures my obsession with Shanghai, where I am from, although my passport says otherwise.
