Artist Statement
All of my pieces here reference the relationship and contrast between me, my home culture, and here (the US). Discovered the ever-changing manner in which I see my own status differently in this current society (as a Chinese guy in the Us), which is the idea I started developing after an emotional breakdown in August 2022, and all these contribute to “love”.
The story starts six years ago. At that time, I was a “typical” Chinese boy who loved our own home culture. That was the first time I came to the US to start studying. I have kept trying so hard to learn and integrate into this unfamiliar Western culture. Until last summer, a personal setback showed up caused by cultural differences in my previous relationship. She is a Chinese girl, the kind of “Chinese girl" I used to be familiar with.
That time I struggled, frustrated, and kept tossing and turning in my bed. I contemplated. Because of her, I started to trace back to my whole journey, what I have changed, what I have kept, and why? I finally realized, during all the changes, I have started having these labels on me: “student study in the US,” “global internationality,” “an independent worldwide guy,” etc. But, at the same time, there is something else that I have always loved and firmly held that is gradually fading away—my Chinese identity and cultural confidence. In the process of thinking, I have been questioning myself: Do I belong here? Am I going in the “right” direction? Should I keep how I am right now, or should I change back to an “idealized Chinese guy”? Do I love Chinese culture and the culture here? Do I love how I am right now? My recent pieces were created all around these questions, and thinking about the differences I have seen between China and the US has affected me the most and answers these questions.
As I create art, I use different fluxing movements involving time in my pieces to create integral feelings for people and for myself as a performer to get to the concept of the theme. At the same time, I am fully getting myself, my own body, to embrace the art, to have my real emotions integrate into the art. Besides my own body being involved, as time lasts in my art, I am also trying to let materials, things, and even my audience to “perform”. With the audiences interacting with my art, getting their emotion and reaction to my pieces, I, as an artist, receive the most valuable feedback from having my art generate a more variety of concepts to carry the piece through.
正
In Chinese, 正 has many meanings: upright, correct, regular, straight, standard, and pure. In China, 正 also represents an idealized image of Chinese masculinity. Growing up, 正 was me. But after five years in the US, cultural differences made me rethink my relationship with my home country and culture.
During the performance, I blindfolded myself to show how I am feeling lost and prompt engagement from the audience with a sign: "ask me questions." In silence, I remain unmoving, unthinking, uncaring; but their questions move me forward, emotionally and physically. As I decide whether and how to respond and vent my emotions, my pain leads me to write uncontrollable "正," and these question-正 conservations push me to straighten my path down the paper, and in my life, to try to force me to adjust back to where I came from, China. However, this is never possible. All the "正" I put down on the paper never looks like how "正" should.
