Identity
Solo Art Exhibition
Inspiration
The theme of my exhibition was inspired by my immigrant experience. My family and I moved to Canada when I was 13 years old, and I experienced a culture shock taught me to balance my dominant culture and the new culture I am exposing myself to. In this exhibition, I will use my artwork to explore different perspectives of identity. I hope the audience can feel resonate and generate some new thoughts when they perceive their own identity through my art exhibition.
Medium
Acrylic Painting, Colored Pencil, Chalk Pastel, Digital Drawing, Face Painting, and Photography.
Concept
Culture, appearance, inner feelings, and the conflicts between them are the topics repeated throughout the exhibition. All of these aspects reflect my identity through my artworks. My multi-cultural background gives me a specific understanding of Chinese and Western cultures. Contemporary society's evaluation of women's appearance has had a great impact on people, which makes me also include this theme in my creation. Under the influence of all the surrounding environmental factors, my inner feelings generated will be the last topic I will show in this exhibition. These three topics seem to be unrelated by themselves. But my artworks share the same theme, which ensures the cohesiveness of my art exhibition.
Curatorial Rationale
Given the exhibition space, in our school gym, I decided to use three 10’’w x 5’’h exhibition display boards to make a U shape space and hang my artworks on the boards, which the audience will be surrounded by works and creates a sense of immersion. The exhibition board in the middle, the first thing the audience sees when they look directly at it, is the photography series “Puzzle”, which shows the character's reactions to the influence of beauty standards around her. Under the photos is a digital drawing “Lost” of unattainable beauty standards leading people to fall into false identities. After watching this work, the audience may reconsider the open ending of the first artwork. Both works have a strong narrative, showing physical and mental changes in the characters. The curatorial decision of placing them in the center will trigger the audience’s thinking and make them better immerse themselves in my works.
“The Balloon Chaser” and “Bird of Paradise” on the left exhibition board both reflect my inner world. Although these two works are more about my own feelings, I think most people will have a similar way at some point. While viewing these, the audience will have more resonance with my artworks. Below them are two works about culture, which are more personal than the previous ones.
The work "Humanoid Vase", which combines two topics of the previous two exhibition boards and contains culture and female images, is placed at the top of the right exhibition board. In previous works, the audience should already have a certain understanding of my identity cognition. Through this work, I want to start guiding the audience to be themselves and find their identity. The following works with the same blue and white porcelain elements reflect my identity among all artworks. The apple of blue and white porcelain reflects my combination of Chinese and Western culture and my tolerance of all surrounding things.Overall, I hope to immerse the audience in my exploration of identity and connect them with themselves through this exhibition. After viewing all the works, let them conduct a reflection of their identity so that the audience who are confused about their identity can find the direction.
Gallery
The Balloon Chasers
Acrylic Painting
30.48*30.48 cm
This artwork expresses the loneliness of those who insist on themselves among many people who are following the trend. Since I was a kid, I did not like to drift with the current, but in my life, I found that sometimes I could not fit in. The red balloon is a symbol of the trend, or a common goal people are chasing. White dots are the crowds moving more and more to the balloon, but only the black dot, the girl, reflecting myself, is staying put resisting her own dream.
Wash Away
Photography
38.1*28.6 cm
As the world is becoming more and more borderless, it is easy to lose traditions. My artistic intent for this photography artwork is to show the loss of artistic traditions from one generation to the next. Hand-colored photographs were the most common in the Republic of China era. But the skill of coloring black-and-white photographs is losing out today. Many symbolic elements like water, threads, and the reflection were included to better express the artistic intent.
Alter-ego Self Portrait
Mixed Media of Colored Pencil & Chalk Pastel
27*39 cm
Alter ego means a person’s alternative personality. I came to Canada from China when in Grade 9. The artistic intent of this artwork is to show the balance between my dominant culture and the western culture. The two characters in the artwork are the two sides of my face, which show both my outside appearance and alter ego. The combination of ancient and modern elements in the artwork disrupts both time and space, representing the gradual integration of the two cultures in my identity.
Bird of Paradise
Photography & Digital Drawing
30.5*30.5 cm
This artwork reflects the inside feeling of being disconnected from the real world. The contrast between the bright “sky” created with polyester and the dark environment enhances the feeling of a split. The bird of paradise flower means freedom, identity, and paradise. It shows the inner freedom character’s yearning but the isolation from the outside world. The pattern on skin, like a tattoo, shows the character’s state involves an internal conflict people can’t see, but also can’t get rid of.
Puzzle
Photography Series
50.8*33.9 cm
The artistic intent is to show the process of finding one’s identity under a great impact of other beauty standards. “Puzzle” represents the tangled state of characters under different aesthetic standards and expresses people’s identity as just like a puzzle, which is pieced together by different standards given by the public. Many symbolic elements were used to imply the changing- standards. This series creates an open ending and left to the viewer to imagine and reflect on themselves.
Lost
Digital Drawing
76.2*29.6 cm
This artwork was made to reflect that the unattainable beauty standards on social media are controlling people’s minds, bringing a negative impact on their identity, and finally resulting in people losing themselves. The character’s wings, representing spirituality and one’s true identity, have gone from being spread freely, free to express her own thoughts, to being protective after receiving a lot of different (negative) comments on social media and starting to demand more from her body image.
Humanoid Vase
Face Painting documented by Photography
50.8*33.9 cm
“Humanoid Vase” was created to satirize the objectification of women as commodities. When I was a child, I was exposed to a traditional view of women as vases, meaning that women only need to be beautiful and have no other use. The blue and white porcelain represents tradition as well as fragile products, symbolizing traditional women's vulnerability and dependence on others. Through my work, I hope to make people aware of this issue and try to become independent women.
Transformation
Colored Pencil Drawing
27*39 cm
This work combines realism in western art and Chinese elements, reflecting the combination of the two cultures in my identity. From the realistic scene at the beginning, the Western culture, I am exposed to, to the integration of blue and white porcelain into an apple, represents the process of embracing new culture into the dominant culture of my identity. In this colored pencil drawing, I try to make the object realistic and create a more realistic visual effect for the audience.
