As an immigrant who arrived in the United States 12 years ago, living in both rural and urban cities, I am constantly fascinated by my surroundings and have never stopped being inquisitive and curious about the human conditions that surround me, especially the process of change. From the complicated New York City subway map to the 11 apartments have I moved into, and subsequently out of, I have explored ways to represent and catalog the aftermath and beforehand of my presence succinctly in pictures, and strived to create the sense of ephemeral and instability by using static medium such as ink, marker, paint, photograph, and now glass.
In the Vacation Series, which explores non-conventional ways of expressing the complex feelings associated with the act of moving out, my belongings have undergone many methods of removal. At the beginning, objects were depicted in colored pencil on vellum, layered underneath a translucent floor plan, fully rendered and subsequently erased, the residual images appearing ephemeral. The layering technique was re-appropriated when the objects were painted on canvas over purposely exaggerated, memory based floor plans, and then painted out, representing my efforts to remove the traces of my life there. Recently, I abandoned the idea of re-creating these spaces altogether, instead using photographs as the painting surface. Being fully aware of the textural differences between the photographic space and the painted surface, and allowing the audience to detect the alteration and cover-up effort, I am communicating how I often feel when taking a last look at an empty property I once called home. No matter how well I have restored the apartment to its original condition, the memory of my occupation lingers.
In 2007 I completed my first public art commission by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- 16 Windows, a permanent installation at an elevated subway station using Fused glass in platform windscreens. Instead of communicating change, I chose this opportunity for permanence to illustrate and catalogue the perpetual-ness of daily life, designing 16 fused glass windows looking inward, onto everyday activity.
