Advisors: Martin Levine + Ezra Thompson

There is a Universe in My Mind

In the fifth grade, I went on a school trip to see Cinderella on Broadway. After the musical, we returned to school to get picked up by our parents. My mom was waiting for me in our deep teal, beat-up 1996 Toyota Corolla. This car used to be my dad’s friend’s car. For some reason, my dad bought it from him and it still runs, to this day. I remember saying “goodbye” to my teacher and running to the car, hoping none of my classmates watched me get inside. I quickly buckled my seatbelt with one hand while covering my face with the other out of embarrassment, wishing I could sink into my seat. I hated that ugly car. While I loved my family deeply, sometimes the way they did things made me burn with shame. I just wanted to be seen as normal. These overwhelming feelings of internalized racism grew with me and pushed me away from my family.

This amalgamation of mixed-media pieces mirrors my cluttered home and the person I am. Growing up, my home has always been somewhat messy. We had mismatched furniture, from buying the cheapest option to picking up stuff from outside, and an abundance of knick-knacks that we just couldn’t let go. As a kid, I never invited friends over because I was embarrassed by the place I called home. Having friends over meant that they would meet my parents, hear us speak in a foreign language, see our Chinese memorabilia, and ultimately see me for who I was. However, in my high school years, something changed. Maybe it was just the maturity that comes with aging or exposure to a broader environment, but I began to understand my parents and started my journey of self-acceptance. This story of struggling with one’s identity is shared by most, if not all children of immigrant parents. In my project, I explored memories that were once recalled with great embarrassment, but now are some of my most cherished reminders of who I am.

Pawty Chairs, Date: April 2024, Dimensions: 2 wood panels, 24” x 39” Medium: Oil paint, glitter flakes, and mixed media on found wood Title: Ikea Chairs, Date: April 2024, Dimensions: 18″ x 20″ Medium: Monotype

Two red and green Ikea Mammut chairs were brought into our apartment by my parents over 15 years ago. They found them next to the trash cans in front of our building. My mom cleaned the chairs and we have had them in our home ever since. I depicted the chairs on pieces of found wood, paralleling my parents’ experience of finding a used object and giving it new life. In the process of preparing these pieces of wood for painting, I applied several coats of GAC 100 Medium and gesso to seal the wood. My painting process started with a simple pencil sketch on the gessoed wood, then I built up thick, generous layers of paint. After completing the painting portion of these pieces, I began to “glue” different items with paint I had collected throughout the years, ranging from scratch tickets to Pokemon cards. To prevent oil from seeping into these materials, I coated them in GAC 100 Medium. Pawty Chairs showcase my chairs as a permanent sticker in my scrapbook of memories. 

Disposophobia is the fear of getting rid of possessions and feeling the need to save them. For all my life, I have always been drawn to the aesthetics of anything and everything. I love to collect lots of different things from fruit label stickers to tiny angel figurines, but I never keep my collections consistent enough to find commonality so it becomes a cluttered mess. Some of the items I keep are for memories, monetary value, or just because they look nice. The collages are made up of various candy wrappers, cut-outs from flyers, shopping bags, etc. that I have accumulated throughout the years. The oldest item is probably the arcade ticket from my trip to China in 2016. The development of these collages was inspired by “I Spy” books. I loved to flip through the pages of idealized chaos and search for hidden objects. In these pieces, I wanted to create something out of the “trash” I have stockpiled to reflect my upbringing in a cluttered, yet loved home.

Repurpose is a growing series that repurposes everyday household items to create prints. This series delves into my childhood feelings of shame towards my family’s “let’s reuse everything and anything” attitude. My kitchen had an old cardboard box filled with plastic shopping bags, as well as soda cans and plastic water bottles saved for the recycling machines. In my eyes, this frugal mentality was embarrassing, it was the complete antithesis of the American success story. However, as I grew older, I found myself adopting my parents’ methods of saving precious commodities for reuse. This series shows how to extend the life of waste material and transform it into art.

Title: New Beginnings, Date: March 2024, Dimensions: 22” x 57” Medium: Oil paint and glitter flakes on found wood

For me, red lanterns are synonymous with Chinese neighborhoods, restaurants, and businesses. The color red is auspicious, as it is associated with celebrations and good fortune. I painted these lanterns on a piece of found wood, mirroring how lanterns symbolize new beginnings. As I did with Pawty Chairs, I prepared this piece of wood with GAC 100 Medium and gesso. I developed an underpainting and started to build up the motions of the sky with strokes of paint going in the same direction. I let the paint dry so that it had a crust, in order to paint the clouds and lanterns on top without mixing and spreading the paint underneath. This scene was created from memories of looking up to watch lanterns blow with the wind and usher in prosperous futures.

Title: I give you this plate A Cat on a skate The hills of New York And a Meadow so great The animals are cute There’s even some loot From stickers to kitchens Ideas take root Well that’s the gist I gave you a list You must look at this plexi I really insist, Date: April 2023, Dimensions: 30” x 36”, Medium: Drypoint on plexiglass

This 30” x 36” drypoint print came to fruition in the Spring 2023 semester. My friend, Samara, and I wanted to use the large printing press in the print shop and were only allowed to use it only if we had a large enough print for it. Therefore, we purchased sheets of plexiglass from hardware stores to do so. My print, in particular, had no pre-formed plan because I wanted it to be limitless. Rather than setting a specific type of imagery I wanted to pursue, I decided to freestyle the design, taking it day by day and incorporating different elements. The resulting composition was my old, chunky family computer in a field of grass with rolling hills that represented my home, New York City. Within the field, I hid little characters and phrases. In the hills, I created links of burrows that housed all types of creatures, which was a play on words, as New York City has 5 boroughs.

Title: What is Your Purpose, Date: October 2023, Dimensions: 3 scrolls, 11” x 48” each Medium: Woodcut and linoleum cut

What is your purpose? reflects on my current state of mind, thoughts of dread and curiosity swarm in my head as the end of my schooling is near. For this triptych, I, once again, pay homage to my Chinese identity by combining elements of different forms of Chinese art. I used planks of wood as my matrix for relief prints, utilized Chinese landscape and architecture, and printed on white calligraphy paper with blue ink to mimic Chinese porcelain. In this series, I ask the question: “What are you doing after graduation?” As I entered my senior year, I found myself in self-doubt, standing at a crossroads unraveling the intricate puzzle of my future plans. Do I go to graduate school? Take a gap year? Just get a job? These restless feelings of imposter syndrome are juxtaposed within this triptych that documents the journey of a charming Chinese lion traversing through mountainous landscapes. Where is he going? Why is he traveling? His destination and purpose remain whimsically enigmatic, mirroring the uncertainties in my own path.

Title: Carry Me Home, Date: March 2024, Dimensions: Medium: Monotype

Red plastic bags are a familiar commodity in my household. The supermarket always packed our items in red bags – fruits, vegetables, whole chickens, fresh seafood. It’s not just a coincidence that Chinese supermarkets choose to use red bags; red holds symbolic significance as a lucky color. Despite the flimsy appearance of plastic bags, they carry their weight from the supermarket to my home, bringing groceries and a little bit of luck. These monotypes mimic 春联 chūnlián, or spring couplets. Rather than using the typical red paper with calligraphy, I reused a red plastic bag to create monotypes and did calligraphy of the character 福 fú, or good blessings.

Salon wall of intaglio, linoleum, and monotype prints, Date: January 2023 – March 2024, Medium: Etching and aquatint on copper, linoleum cut, monotype

Throughout all my artwork, I have always felt the need to maximize and fill up the matrix I use. Given the lengthy amount of wall space on the second-floor gallery, I decided to create a salon wall with variations of prints. Salon style refers to hanging artwork from floor to ceiling, covering the exhibition walls completely. I felt drawn toward this style of exhibition because it exemplifies the idea of “more is more”, which is something I find myself falling into when I create art. The prints found on this salon wall were developed with various printmaking methods, copper etching, linocut, and monotypes. I choose to use printmaking as my main medium because it allows for storytelling. I am able to manipulate and combine images, memories, and feelings on a single plate, as well as print with different techniques, such as chine collé, à la poupée, and double drop. By doing so, I can create varying multiples of the same image, thus the viewer can see these memories of mine in different ways.

Throughout these past two years, I have learned and experimented with various printmaking and painting techniques to develop my own methods of storytelling. There is a Universe in My Mind is a compilation of memories that were once buried underneath feelings of embarrassment, now resurfacing as treasured tokens of my upbringing.