"Cut Shelf", Oil on handmade shelf, 3x3', 2017 spring.
"summer fields", oil on canvas, 40x50 cm each panel, 2017 summer.
" self-portrait with chair", oil on canvas, 36x48'', 2017 fall.
" sink, mirror and light on wallpaper", oil on canvas, 40x48'', 2017 fall.
" If I could ever marry you", oil on canvas, 60x96'', 2017 fall.
The dream of closeted lgbt couples in the countryside of Northern China.
" If I could ever marry you II ", oil on canvas, 48x100'', 2017 fall.
The dream of closeted lgbt couples in the countryside of Northern China.
"Carry me with you", Interactive wooden human backpack, 2017 spring.
-飞檐 - “Fei Yan”, wood, 2017 fall.
During my past five years of studying in the U.S., I often felt displaced and disconnected from my home and culture. The longer has I lived far from home, the more I have felt nostalgic about my childhood and teenage years in China. I was born and raised in Shenyang, a northeastern city of China. I grew up seeing traditional Qing architectures, such as the Mukden Palace and Zhao Mausoleum. I remember standing beneath the roof of Zhao Mausoleum when I was little, looking up to the complex cornice. The cornice was sharp and upturned like a sword cutting up the sky. While I was standing beneath the roof, I felt safe and protected. Now I’m far from home, by building my own traditional Chinese cornice, I created a safe space for my nostalgia and memories. By holding up the cornice on my shoulders, I’m also carrying the weight of my culture and longing for home. By standing at a corner of a contemporary American architecture with the traditional Chinese cornice on my shoulders, I try to create a safe space for myself in the chaos of time and space.
"bed"- carved from basswood, 2017 fall
“Feminine Needs”- performative objects made of basswood and poplar, 2017 fall.
When I was very little, around 4 years old, I used to steal my mom’s bras and play them as if they were toys. I would also put them on my chest and pretend that I had breasts. I also loved to steal my mom’s menstrual pads, and put them on my underwear, pretending that I was on my period. As I grew up, I have become more tomboyish. All the sudden, all “Girly” things made me feel uncomfortable, though they were still mysterious to me. I remember being too embraced to look at or even walk towards the “feminine needs” section in supermarkets. Later on, when I hit puberty, my attitude towards feminine product has become more strange and complicated. I was to embarrassed to buy pads even when I was on my period. I don't like the way cashiers look at me when I was buying menstrual pads, as if he or she knew that I was “becoming a woman”. Though I have no breasts. I still feel felt the pressure to wear a bra, because the girls who are the same age as me are all wearing bra. I remember wearing a half empty 32A bra, and being afraid that people would see the hollowness beneath my shirt. Puberty was so strange, especially in China. All the sudden, I can't run around and play soccer with boys, I can't sit with my legs open, I can't laugh too loud, I was not allowed to be friends with boys, because my parents thought their were no real friendship between males and females, “boys just want to take advantage of you!” And all these strange rules were put upon me as I started using menstrual pads and bras that were too big for me. As I grew older, I slowly found my attraction towards women, the “girly things” become somehow “hot”, in other words: sexually attractive to me. And I wonder if my embarrassment towards feminine products at a young age was due to my shame of my sexual attraction towards women.
My sculpture piece “Feminine Needs” is a reflection of my experience of growing up as a Chinese girl. I wasn't intended to make anything feminist or provocative or confrontational towards men. The piece is simply about my own story, and the absurdity of puberty, womanhood and sexuality.
