Life & Death

"Life & Death" is a collection of works created during the most emotionally volatile, chaotic period of my life and marks the conception of several new series. I made the sculptural installation “Time Stands Still in this Room while I Wait” while my father was in the hospital and I was quarantined in my studio. During that period I kept twisting strings out of xuan paper, imagining that time could be frozen into a certain string space, and manifested physically, which eventually led to the "Microcosms of Mourning" series. Painted in a state of extreme fervor, with a mixture of ink, acrylic, and molding paste applied using a pastry decorating bag, "Picking up the Trash Bag of your Belongings" processes the shock, memories, grief, and horror I felt the day after my father died, on my journey to the hospital to pick up his belongings. As the hospital staff searched among numerous trash bags for the one with my father’s name on it, I began to panic- How many trash bags were there? As I held this bag, the heaviest thing I had ever carried, the buildings transformed into enemies, poised for a violent attack. The "Life & Death" series confronts my existential terror in the aftermath of this experience.