New Sculptural Work in Ink :
My art allows me to be the initiator of my own history. I choose subjects and materials equally that reflects my Asian-American female-hood and navigates through a life experience in perpetual identity crisis and awakening. My new sculptural work using organic material (protein-based ink from my childhood and Chinese heritage) is a spiritual and healing practice led by process and experimentation. It is a material I know more and more intimately and represents me.
I apply conventional methods and inventive techniques so the sculptures I make in ink can be formed and dehydrated, and still be rehydrated and deformed. Animal protein and pigments are mixed over heat so that I can manipulate them into form. This organic material is fundamentally transformative and impermanent, impacted by heat and moisture. Ink sculptures are of mortal minutiae itself composed. It is not just applied to the surface. It is the surface.
I also use ink as a surrogate for time and time travel. The ink I make is derived from ancient and traditional Chinese ink sticks which was focal to rituals that made up my childhood painting lessons. Though personal, ink is ubiquitous and grapples with the multitude of personal and collective transformations happening in a fast-growing age of anxiety.
