Since the age of 6, I have always gravitated towards visual arts as my preferred form of communication. I believe this creative practice developed out of a speech impairment I later grew out of. After my middle school art teacher encouraged me to realize a passion for visual expression, she strongly encouraged me to apply to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and specialize in this study. At LaGuardia, my life changed when the culture shock and stark differences between the world I was coming to see for the first time, clashed with my family and their beliefs. I felt disoriented, and eventually, became a stranger to myself. I dropped out of high school after repeating my senior year in 2015, and moved to Newark, NJ. Because my artistic practices lacked the cultural capital necessary to validate its worth, I acquired my GED in 2018 and decided to attend college. Using art to cope with my traumas and rediscover myself, I attended Queensborough Community College to study my interests rigorously and develop my professionalism. In the beginning of my educational journey, I set a goal to do my best and find new questions. My visual art has been showcased in the Student Gallery exhibition The Portrait Show and The 2020 Annual Juried Student Exhibition, alongside other publications. Below, are the pieces which were featured at Queensborough Community College from 2019-2020 in addition to my most recent work featured at Queens College from 2023.
Featured artwork in the 2023 Thomas Chen Family Crystal Windows Scholarship Presentation and Student Art Exhibit at Queens College's Student Gallery titled In the Mood for Love: Chinese Lantern Tree.
Papier mâché sculptural installation
10/10/2023 - 10/20/2023
Adhesive, acrylic paint, alcohol marker, artificial leaves, cardboard, cellophane wrapping paper, clay pot, coffee, coin bank, dumbbell, plaster of paris, egg carton, foam noodle, hanger, masking paper, masking tape, ready made concrete, rice, reflective paper, rock, string lights, sawdust, tracing paper, trash bag, water-based oil paint, watercolor, wire
7' 7" x 1' 41" x 4'
This sculptural installation made from mixed medium and found objects draws inspiration from the Chinese Lantern plant (Physalis alkekgni), Wong Kar-wai's film titled In the Mood for Love, and Chinese lantern traditions. Specifically, the romantic and liberatory qualities rooted in the history of the Lantern Festivals in ancient times. Through which, the holiday permitted unique social opportunities for women to occupy the public domain beyond curfew restrictions and traditional gender norms in order to participate in lantern viewing during nighttime. This piece, much like Wong Kar-wai's film, questions the constructive properties of love by focusing on his expression of interpersonal tensions through color and obscurity of the mundane. The fragile balance between reality and fantasy is incorporated through the artificiality in this sculpture, functioning as a metaphor for ideas related to ancestry, relationships, and intimacy. In application of papier mâché and paper folding techniques, the cyclical life of the Chinese Lantern plant is meticulously reinterpreted as a commemorative post that similarly circulates social unification. The binary opposition of nature observation and imaginative synthesis is utilized to celebrate the feeling of shared wonderment amongst varying degrees of relationships between individuals as a collectively found and assembled experience.
Featured cover on the 2020 Annual Juried Student Exhibit for Queensborough Community College's Art & Design Department and Student Activities titled Paradoxical.
Self-portrait
2019
Water based oil on canvas
11" x 14"
Heavily inspired by Caravaggio's tenebrism, this piece attempts to understand an unstable self-image. Capturing the duality and androgyny of its refracted reflection, the human persona emerges from an abyss of unknowingness.
Showcased drawing in the 2020 Student Exhibit titled "Portrait Show" for Queensborough Community College's Art & Design Department and Student Activities titled I Won't Complain.
Screenshot rendition
2019
Charcoal on reeves paper
N/A
From Benjamin Clementine's beautifully bizarre music video and song I Won't Complain, this drawing suspends a glimpse into the unapologetically shy growth of a claustrophobic and vulnerable composition.
The first self-portrait completed in Queensborough Community College's advanced painting class titled Which, a looking glass observing naturally distorted elements of realism.
Self-portrait
2019
Water based oil on canvas
24" x 36"
Being the prequel to Paradoxical, it is the beginning of "realistic surrealism". Influenced by Salvador Dali's Crucifixion and Francis Bacon's Three Studies for a Self-Portrait, the piece is a muted study of brush application, expression, and intrinsic oddities.
It is the pictorial monolith which propels and haunts, impersonating the ghastly struggles of the artistic spirit.
Featured work in the 2020 Annual Juried Student Exhibit for Queensborough Community College's Art & Design Department and Student Activities titled Passing Time.
Abstract Drawing
2019
Graphite on Bristol paper
10" x 7"
After tracing lines from Le Corbusier's Still Life, adjacent shapes were shaded in opposing directions to create a metaphor for the passages of time. The hours dedicated to the drawing's cogwheels, ironically embodied its incremental and integral span. Unconsciously, the overwhelming design of disarray orders the fragility of its technical accomplishments.