my paternal grandfather was an illegal chinese immigrant to america. my maternal grandmother preferred canada. i was born in vancouver, and now london is my home. i can't read chinese, and can only speak cantonese badly and with some embarrassment. my english will never lose its canadian twang. during my first visit to hong kong -- where my mother was born and raised -- i retraced the steps she took to go to school and the markets she visited on the weekends as a teenager. i felt at once connected to my own history, and yet also a foreigner.
i have never known life as a majority. it is perhaps not surprising, then, that i am fascinated by questions of origin and identity, of autonomy and assimilation. what are the identifiers that make you, you and me, me? how are these identifiers interpreted by others? portraiture has always captivated me as a way of communicating the stories of princes and paupers, friends and strangers. through the painter's brush, the portrait becomes a dialogue between the artist, the subject and the viewer within an ever-changing social landscape.
dancer
a series exploring costume and captured actions, and the ideas we impress when offered a few gestures, a few symbols.
faces
the young women portrayed in this series -- their faces enlarged to heroic proportions -- all represent narratives similar to my own. they are migrants going to or coming from, and are captured at a time when their choices will define the rest of their lives.
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