Artist Statement
The series of artwork investigates the relationship between vulnerability and masculinity through questioning/transforming the idea of twinhood, popular media, and traumatic experiences from childhood. By exercising emotive writings, sketches, photographs, and experimentations in printmaking I was able to escape from becoming a victim of the “ideal” male of society: hard-nosed, emotionless, money hungry and angry. Influences from hip hop culture and artists like Anselm Kiefer, Francis Bacon, and Marc Chagall will be apparent in the way of interpreting and absorbing the before and after-math of trauma: showcase the impact of the past (certainty), possibility in the future, identify moments of “discharge”, acknowledge childhood “imprints” for usage of neutralizing pain, and seek redemption by actively searching for solution (liberation from societal standard). Book of the encyclopedia for animals is deployed for research on understanding animals on a more intimate level: how animals embody the ideal version of men that is "frowned" upon. The project also breaks down how the popular podcasts/streams assist in the idea that "vulnerability" is unhealthy in men. The information gathered from reading, sketching, and researching are used for the finalization of the ideal male body in society: an overly dramatic "blue rabbit" that never shy away from expressing. Most pieces are done in oil on canvas, except for the first two pieces on “twinhood”- It uses typographical elements like poem, random “grumble”, emotional “exclamation” to tell an untold story about the “misunderstanding” between my twin and me.