I'm a storyteller; I love to share my experiences--and the experiences of others--through various mediums: oral tangents in conversations, essays written in the wee hours of the morning, and most significantly, my artwork.
My oil painting, A Eulogy for the Perennial, was displayed at the Asian Art Museum in collaboration with the artist Amanda Phongbhodipikiya for a project called "Letting our Art Speak." This piece illustrated my family's history in Japanese internment camps, their nursery, and my experience with Buddhism as a Sansei (third generation Japanese-American). I utilized canvas panels to replicate stage-like altars inside Buddhist temples and painted my family's nursery in diluted sienna, using a grainy black and white photo from the forties for reference. In the foreground, a weathered pair of hands delicately hold Juzu prayer beads, and an obscured bust explodes with roots grasping onto the entirety of the canvas. Each thoughtful brushstroke blooms with the stories of my ancestry.
However, I also use art to discover stories. Some of my most meaningful pieces are born from spontaneity and instinct, helping me understand feelings that are too intense and visceral to verbalize. Upon feeling an impulse to work with my hands on a larger project using industrial materials, I began aimlessly cutting and contorting wires of different gauges, adding texture and dimension with a pair of pliers. I used these bits of wire to form a spine, then a ribcage, and finally a pelvis, which I grounded with concrete and brandished clay. What started as mindless experimentation resulted in a 3.5 foot skeletal statue, the piece that I am most proud of. Taking a step back from my work, I saw the deeper meanings which were unknowingly engraved in each detail; my feelings at the time of ambivalence towards my body, viewing it as a burdensome vessel for work rather than a gift, could be seen in the prominence of negative space and the weight of the harsh materials. Stories extracted from my art at their conclusion are just as meaningful as those intentionally planned from the beginning.
