Video stills from Ashes to Sand, recorded performance of ancestral burning
After performing a ceremonial burning of drawings meant for the dead, transforming paper and pastel into ash and smoke, I have found that my art practice is starting to tie into my cultural practice of ancestral worship. From the meditative experience that is painting, I create psychological landscapes that explore spirituality, memory, and time. I use collaged imagery in my paintings to represent the chaotic nature of memory and the transformation of entities.
The addition of rainbows in my work refers to: 1) themes of transformation; 2) the maximalist Cantonese aesthetic I grew up with; and 3) how I have grown into my own disco ball brand of queerness. I collage together images of home, images of altars, with queer symbols that are not necessarily queer, as a way of exploring the many facets of identity, and how we ourselves may transform over the course of a lifetime.