The center of the triptych is a man in lionskin, his hand poised to club at the serpent slithering up his leg. On the left side, monsters and yaoguai burn in hellfire, far from a distant couple beneath bright vermillion beams. The outside of the triptych features two baroque men looking into a portal, leading into a mysterious spread of fengshui watercolor.
A combination of my two greatest passions, this triptych that I spent my summer working on represents my love for history and artmaking, but also my attention to intersectionality and small cultural narratives---those often forgotten by history or passed over, intentionally erased. The man in lionskin represents the Hercules-Vajrapani---a Buddhist-Hellenic deity which spawned after the Greek conquest of India. The monsters and the couple on the wings of the triptych represent the infernal and mortal realms in Chinese-Buddhist mythology. Meanwhile, the baroque men on the front represent cross-cultural exchange; a glance into the Far East through a medieval-styled Western framework.
As an Artist-Historian, I am most interested in representing the idea of classical reception. Cultures being received by each other, and the past being received by the present. My artwork explores intercultural narratives and uses the connectivity of the ancient world for inspiration, combining classical Eurasian mythologies and histories and time periods. As someone who’s never learned to settle on one interest over another, my historical artwork demands engagement with all.
Similar themes appear in other projects--- Gilgamesh Conquers the Bull of Heaven puts the Neoclassical and Art Nouveau movements on its head by depicting a scene from the Ancient Near East---a battle from the Ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, drawing attention away from traditionally Western illustrative narratives and instead reinventing something even more foreign and archaic. Its pose is referenced directly from an Ancient Mesopotamian terracotta relief of Gilgamesh. In “How Fast Do We Move,” I take inspiration from the Chinese Cultural Revolution to depict two dancing youths. The story I tell subverts the politics of this era by focusing on a brief, romantic moment between two youths instead of the world around them. That is, as much as the canvas that boxes them in and the heavy Red Guard bands on their arms will allow them to. Meanwhile, works such as “Mensheng” reinvent a classic Chinese carving tradition into modern modular designs and “Angel’s Flight” points towards a local Los Angeles Red Car tradition---a nostalgic reflection of my growing up in the City of Angels.
As an illustrator, animator, painter, experimenter, and sit-down-and-sketcher, my processes are varied and depend heavily on the style or story I am conveying. From Minoan wall paintings to the illustrators of the Golden Age of Illustration, my work draws heavily upon historic art canons and looks to modernize them through digital or select physical media.