Two Places 兩個地方 (made for the exhibition, Girls Love Grids - click hear for exhibition outline)‘two places 兩個地方, part of a body of work stemming from my recent reconnection with my ancestral history. The works refer to my life, family and growth in Australia, and my blood heritage in Taiwan. Things in twos are common, two as twins, two rocks perfectly aligned on the ground.
I returned to Taiwan to meet my birth mother at 24, she was 24 when she had me.
This experience was released into the grid; to make sense of life, separation, history and emotion. The grid, a strong form to hold narratives, skin, softer things. Marking the grid onto my flesh, a ritual of protection, a repetition of mark-making, lineation and pattern. The grid embraces my body and anchors my experience, in place and now. It becomes a barrier, an outward demarcation of the beginning of a coalesced identity.
Initiating from the grid, marking my narrative onto fabric, processing and understanding.’
two places 兩個地方 (2024), photo transfer on unbleached cotton, ink, pva glue, rope, eyelets on linen, 143 x 95 cm
PHOTOGRAPHED BY: LOUIS LIM
I am from two places 我來自兩個地方 (2024), ink, coloured pencil, pen on paper and photographs, 31 x 12 cm.
I was staying up in a mountain nipa hut on Siquijor, when I made these sketch and photographs.
The ink on the page, placed into water. Suspended like blood. Surrounded by white lines of a coloured pencil and black dots of a pen. Once dried, the pigment smoothed to the edges of the water mark.
I had bought ink and a small paint holder from an art shop in Taipei, and a calligraphy brush from an art hub in Taichung. These materials I used to make this work.
I started to make markings in a loose grid formation on my leg with the ink and calligraphy brush. Fascinated by the action, by the visual armor it created. I covered my whole body with markings, a protective grid.
two places 兩個地方 (2024), photo transfer on unbleached cotton, ink, pva glue, rope, eyelets on linen, 143 x 95 cm.
Transfers of my chest, blurred.
Shadows and light projected onto the wall of the guesthouse. There were two lines on the wall, segmented and curved, one longer than the other.
‘two lines on the wall’ - photo transfer from embraced, anchored 擁抱, 錨定 (2024)
skin grid 皮膚網格 (2024), ink and coloured pencil on unstretched canvas, 53 x 51 cm, 55 x 51 cm, 107 x 52 cm.
The marks on my skin, lines rolling down between in a perfect line, tracks formed.
A barrier, marked over and over, a simple form made vast by repetition, layers, layers like skin, shedding, growing.
embraced, anchored 擁抱, 錨定 (2024), ink, coloured pencil, pen, pva glue, eyelets and photo transfer on unbleached cotton, 84 x 158, 84 x 158 cm.
Interconnecting my physical experience with the original sketch piece.
Photo transfers of my leg twice and my hip gridded with ink, the outdoor bathroom/washroom floor with tread marks, the mesh hanging over the washroom walls facing up towards the blue sky, the brush and ink holder. All within the grid, anchored in place.
Processing experience through the separated form of the grid.
