What the Body Keeps
Open Access DepositedAfter coming to the United States to study, the changes in my living environmentmade me feel a sense of not belonging. This made me reflect on the relationship between love, family and myself. In this transition, seemingly contradictory emotions such as closeness and loneliness often appear at the same time. Love is an indispensable part of our lives, and in my work, I keep thinking about the multiple emotions that love brings to me. For me, love is not a single emotional state, but the emergence of a series of conflicting feelings—tenderness, longing, vulnerability, restraint and pain. My paintings mainly combine mixed materials (surgical gauze, polyurethane foam, plastic beads, clay, and more) and acrylic paint. I depict specific parts of my body, using them as emotional containers to register and hold the fluctuations of my feelings. My work uses depictions of the body in motion to bring forth my reflections on the self and the migration of emotions. Through the different forms and angles of these body fragments, I show my attempts to break the boundaries of the self and my reflections on whether gaining love also means losing a certain kind of freedom. I use color as an emotional release in my work, while the lines extend across the canvas as an exploration of movement and spatial continuity. The tangled and pulled lines in bright yellow, deep blue and light green, together with the red body parts, create an inner emotional narrative. The collision between warm and cool colors reflects how love exists within me. I use mixed materials to express my emotional changes in a more three-dimensional way on the canvas. The shiny red jewels and the expanding abstract foam are all part of my thoughts on self-reconstruction. For me, love is something that keeps growing and shimmering with light.
- All rights reserved
Notice to Authors
If you are the author of this work and you have any questions about the information on this page, please use the Contact form to get in touch with us.