My most recent paintings are rooted in cross-cultural exchanges in which I can construct and de-construct notions of representation. The response to my art prompted me to think about representation not in terms of pictorial illusionism, but more in terms of culture, politics, gender, social stereotype and voyeurism. The development of my art and scholarship are also influenced by the work of Edward Said. His seminal text on “Orientalism” helped navigate the trajectory of my thoughts and impulses, in that the “orient at large… vacillates between the West’s contempt for what is familiar and it shivers of delight in- or fear of- novelty” (Orientalism p. 59). I began to investigate this idea of the novel in giving my work a “Chinatown” aesthetic, alluding to kitsch objects and souvenirs that tourists purchase and the commodifying of eastern notions into tchotchkes. I include Chinese cherubs, lotus flowers, lucky fish and silk textile patterns in a complicated composition of both delight and horror. My paintings are conceptually multi-dimensional so that viewers with a western perspective interpret my work in one way, while viewers with a non-western perspective interpret my work in another way. The works are usually of highly illuminated bodies with a lush yet Baroque palette that are set against flat backgrounds, objects and eastern patterns. For me, the most interesting response is when a viewer who has no allegiances to either western or non-western perceptions, would acknowledge the awkward synthesis and the visual and cultural idiosyncrasy of my projects.
These works investigate a type of multiculturalism that assumes the form of a complex structure; a structure that focuses on idiosyncratic relationships, cultural slippage, (mis)translation, and the import and export of different ideologies within a multifaceted context. The American landscape is a critical place for my work in exploring when “outside” cultures and ideas are imported, how they are assimilated, and how they are distorted. For example, when is a swastika an extreme emblem of nationalism, or when is it a spiritual symbol in Buddhist scroll painting? When is the Mexican depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary a sacred image, or when is it a chic/kitsch living room painting? With such critical observations informing my work, I have presently come to the project of painting recontextualizations of traditional Chinese iconography and allegories within the narrative of American culture: pop and arcane; high and low.