About Me
My subject matter heavily revolves around perception and emotions, and to make the viewer empathize with my work regardless of whether or not they sympathize with it. Coming from a cultural background where everything is implied and indirect, compounded with being socialized to be an unfeeling boy has caused difficulty. As a first-generation Vietnamese American, the friction of non-direct communication derived from my parents was amplified by a language barrier. Not only did I not pick up their underlying message, but I also did not even understand their surface-level message. This resulted in a lack of language to explain how I felt, as any negative emotion I felt was met with dismissal or outright anger. I use my artwork as a medium to process my emotions and create a thick enough layer of separation where I can initially be vulnerable without direct vocalization. In my thesis “Medusa,” my focus was on insecurities involving dysmorphia and dysphoria as I sought answers to explain my own turmoil. The anxiety of being stared at is typical when one worries about appearance. In my live performance, I gave the subject a haircut before my vanity sculpture, where the subject could not view themselves, yet the audience could. The mirrors had a quality of distortion to simulate looking at others' faces with peripheral vision, and being in the chair forces one to look only through the peripheral.