There is an Art Exhibition going on at East Campus Hall in UW right now. It’ll last until Tuesday, March 24. One of my pieces is being displayed in the front gallery inside the building. There are paintings, mixed media, photographs, pencil sketches, etc.
My artwork is essentially a self-portrait. I used a series of still life prints to construct a timeline in my life. This is a painful yet rewarding project for me personally because I’m laying out the complications of my family. More specifically the timeline shows when certain people left my life and how they reentered again. By laying it out in the public, I’m trying to ask questions to my viewer: were their decisions that they made for me correct? Their decisions definitely shaped me for who I am today. They made me strong, mature, and responsible. But I was left with a messy and hollow childhood.
Just some background information:
After my birth in 1987 in Beijing, my dad soon left my mom and I to pursue his education in New York University. As a result I don’t have much memories with him in my childhood. My mom raised me up until the age of 3, then my parents divorced and I was being sent to full time daycare. I’d live there during weekdays and my mom would come and pick me up during weekends. From age 6 to 10, I lived with my grandparents on my dad’s side and they became the most important people to me. During that time my mom would visit during weekends and I rarely see my dad (and my stepmom). At age 10, my stepmom wished to immigrate to Canada and my dad made me to tag along with them. I was told that this is a vacation. (But it wasn’t.) I soon adapted to the environment and people around me, but then at age 14 they wanted to go back to Beijing along with their son, my half brother. I was left with no choice but to move to Toronto for where my mom settled. (Soon after I left Beijing, she immigrated to Toronto. Married, then divorced to someone I’ve never seen. She still hasn’t told me a word about that person even till now.)
Needless to say how big of an impact these things could’ve left on me. I have a blurry definition of what a family is as a result. I learned to grab onto any relationship that I can maintain to survive during these drifting years. I accept the fact that people in my life can’t protect me and won’t live with me until I’m strong enough to move out. Being forced to grow up was not easy, especially by those who I trusted so much.
We can’t say because everything worked out in the end, so everything that happened during the process have very little values in the end. I couldn’t help but feel resentful. I need to let go of these thoughts and move on. But no matter how many times I talk to people about these I’d still feel emotional. Just as today I was talking about my piece of work in the class critique, I tried very hard to control the flow of my voice. I tried to keep it steady and tried to not let my emotions fly all over the place.
In my piece, I used a lotus to represent the timeline in the background. It represents my Chinese heritage as well as the Chinese saying: 出淤泥而不染。This Chinese proverb praises lotus because it originates from muddy ponds, yet it grows to be this aesthetically visually pleasing flower making it that much harder to imagine its origin. Lotus is also a very useful plant: its seeds are used in Chinese medicines and its roots make wonderful Chinese dishes. Therefore I chose to use the representation of lotus. The background of the lotus as well as written descriptions are all drawn on the wall itself using charcoal pencil. It creates a poetic and sensitive touch to my artwork.