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Every one of us has been touched or deeply impacted by tragedy and adversary. Perhaps the appropriate response to those traumatic experiences is not focusing on the why or what behind the trauma, but the how. How do we embrace our adversity, tragedy, trauma and find strength and courage during the time of challenges?  How to gather strength during challenging times also depends on the aesthetic vision that is how to find beauty in the suffering.  My paintings take viewers to the mystical/spiritual dimension of suffering and transformation.  They confront the viewers with the image of a wound, allow them to reflect on the nature of woundedness as well as invite them to think about the meaning of suffering. 

On one hand, suffering involves many intense emotions such as distress, despair, anguish, and anxiety.  On the other hand, a will to survive and conquer adversity also yields a set of feelings such as vulnerability and powerlessness. Besides these emotional weights, suffering can also evoke deep questions about one’s very existence and meaning of life.  Bearing those complex emotions and finding existential meanings in these challenging situations can be a valuable and transformative experience.  Suffering creates emotional depth and uncovers one’s empathic sensibility. 

 

Can tragedy/ecstasy, anxiety/excitement, distress/vulnerable anguish/trembling be visually expressed?  My works want to connect between the visual and the emotional.  I want to captivate the human emotions in colors.  I want to make visible the invisible wounds.  I want to paint the resilience of human spirit soaring in the midst of suffering.  I want to paint a tragic heart longing for transcendence.  I want to paint beauty in the woundedness.     

 

To this end, I utilize color, texture and atmospheric perspective to describe these complex experiences.  For me, colors carry the weight and intensity of emotions; and I use them to get in touch with my deep feelings.  Saturated colors like violet resonate strongly with how I feel about hope.  I apply thick paints to create texture to depict the wound.  The three dimensionality of textural paints allows the viewers to see the work not as a flat surface or illusion of space.   At the same time, I build up many layers of paint to achieve suitable atmospheric perspective to invite viewers to imagine beyond what is presented.  A soft shifting layer of paint acts like a veil to reveal the surface underneath which is seen as if light coming through a window.  

 

My intention for these paintings is to serve as contemplative windows; an opportunity for viewers to explore their own personal journeys of time, space, memory and experience.  They not only provide unitive experience by showing the depth of suffering but also communitive by opening a space for healing.  

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