I would say my artistic goal has changed a lot through the years. At the beginning of my journey, I focused a lot on creating my creative expression and trying to find my inner feeling about major social issues. However, it has come to me that I forgot the most important state of “myself.” I allowed myself to be a respondent to many things that is not really connected to me and express my perspective from a third person’s view. It was around January of 2016 that I realized that I lacked my own passion about who I really am and the beauty of my own culture. Thus, I have responded by creating the new collection of pieces that respond to my interests and life.
The cohesive theme of illusion and misfit stems from my interest in the minds and its ability to create suspended states of awareness through interaction with reality and manufactured reality. The art pieces present dense and intricate propulsions through referencing a rich historical value of the Chinese culture. Using mixed medias artifice, the marks construct the illusionistic quality of my generation to be unique of losing or gaining an x-identity. This x-identity is a measure of belonging to a certain culture and group. The popularity and interests of such human and their categorization of how much are them.
Through personal process of the artist’s root and individual imprints, these paintings and sculptures reflect on humanity and naturality of crossing cultures as time progresses. The cross examination further generates my renovation of Chinese traditional art. The showcased pieces are representations of myself in a state of ambiguity growing up as a Chinese, while lacking to function like a true traditional Chinese amongst the society. From my own tracing of my feet back to my culture and research on my own change, the pieces express their history of Chinese culture and personal emotions. Especially, due to my growth from childhood until today I have dealt with enormous problems of western influence. With these artworks, I present the illusion and misfit of both the process and conclusion of the struggle to change as a Chinese? American? Artist?
Anko Chang
June 2, 2016
