Lost in Translation
This series explores my evolving relationship with my mother, a relationship shaped by love, conflict, self-doubt, and growth. Growing up in the United States with a demanding Chinese immigrant mother, I often found myself caught between her expectations and my desire to discover who I was beyond them. Why were we so different? And how much of who I had become was shaped by her?
Photography became a way for me to explore the emotions I struggled to put into words. Through experimental processes, including projections, image transfers, stitching, and film photography, I revisit childhood memories, question the labels that have defined me, and search for meaning in the distance between us. Each image becomes an attempt to understand not only my mother, but also the person I am becoming.
As the series unfolds, my focus shifts from the pain of our differences toward the possibility of acceptance and reconciliation. Rather than searching for a perfect resolution, I am learning to embrace the complexity of our relationship, making room for both the memories that have shaped me and the future we have yet to create.
Traces of Light, 25x16.6, 2024. Digital camera captures image projected onto itself. Light meets paper. Mom doesn't want me to do ballet, so I try to erase my childhood love for it. Why won't it go away?
Scarred Memories, 21.6x14.4, 2025. Digital camera captures my hands holding a discarded memory, too damaged to ever return to its original state.
Branded Divide, 20x13.3, 2025. Digital camera captures the word "American" imprinted onto my face using face paint. I am American, mom is Chinese. We will always be different.
Nowhere to Hide, 21.6x14.4, 2025. The place I feel most vulnerable in the world is my mom's car. There's no escape, nowhere to hide. The car traps me. Digital camera captures me curling up into a ball, to block out her screams, but my barrier isn't impenetrable.
Left Behind, 19.5x19.7, 2025. Holga film captures sister leaving for college. Leaving me alone to fend for myself. I reach out to stop her, but it feels as though it's a dream, and I have no control. She leaves.
Unbreakable Image, 15x21.7, 2025. Modge-podge seals my soul to a shirt with image transfer. I'm trapped inside this label defining me.
Neglected Celebration, 32.6x12.8, 2025. Abandoned birthday cake left out. Trail camera captures foxes devouring it, leaving nothing behind. No one cares about the cake, who cares about a birthday?
Proximate Distance, 28.4x43.8, 2025. Digital camera captures me as I reach out for mom's face, to get closer, but she's indifferent. The distance between us grows.
First Embrace, 14.2x15.6, 2025. Holga film captures the moment when mom accepts my embrace. When she starts to accept me. Tension is released, distance is closed, the start of our journey only begins.
Once upon a time…, 50.5x34, 2025. Digital camera captures me when I join my mom under a blanket. She reads a Chinese children's book. I feel 5, learning to love life again. We get a redo of my childhood. Tying up the loose ends, providing closure for me to move on.
Almost Somewhere
My artwork explores the space between reality and imagination, often reflecting my desire for freedom, nostalgia, and my attempts to make sense of the world around me. I am drawn to the emotions and contradictions that exist within everyday life, from the comfort of familiar memories to the uncertainty of growing up. Through my work, I transform these feelings into visual narratives, using symbolism, color, and composition to express ideas that are difficult to capture in words.
Art has become a way for me to reinterpret the world through my own perspective. Through vibrant colors, expressive brushstrokes, distorted perspectives, and unconventional materials such as cardboard, wood, and paper, I experiment with different ways of communicating meaning. Birds soaring above a crowded city become symbols of freedom, while a broken ladder reaching toward an illusory window questions the promises we make to ourselves. Every artistic decision, from the smallest detail to the overall composition, becomes part of a larger story I hope to tell.
As my artistic practice has evolved, I have become increasingly interested in pushing beyond the familiar, both in the ideas I explore and the ways I bring them to life. Rather than limiting myself to a single medium or style, I allow each concept to guide my choice of materials, techniques, and visual language. I have learned to embrace experimentation, spontaneity, and even uncertainty, discovering new possibilities with every work I create. The more I challenge myself, the more I realize that art is not simply a way to represent what I already know, but a way to discover what I have yet to understand.
Next Stop: Freedom, 48” x 18”, 2024. Bright orange birds soar above a crowded city, escaping the routines and restrictions of everyday life. Their wings embody the freedom I long for, carrying them somewhere beyond the ordinary. I wish I could fly away with them.
Picture Perfect, 18” x 24”, 2025. Caught mid-chew, my father appears far from the polished perfection of traditional portraiture. Vibrant colors and expressive brushstrokes reveal his playful, unguarded personality. Rather than idealizing him, I celebrate the imperfections that make him unmistakably himself.
Midsummer Whimsy, 16” x 20”, 2024. A girl glows against a swirling, dreamlike world where reality and fantasy intertwine. Through vibrant colors and playful forms, I explore the exhilarating freedom of creating without boundaries, where imagination can take us anywhere.
Baby Steps, 24” x 20”, 2025. Vibrant acrylic colors, finger-painted dots, and crayon-like scribbles capture the untamed creativity of a child's imagination, while the blurred background reflects an innocent unawareness of the world beyond. I find myself longing for that kind of naivety, for a time before life became so complicated.
Two Sides of a Carrot, 36” x 24”, 2026. A girl and a goat share a carrot, experiencing the same moment in entirely different ways. Their contrasting expressions bring humor to an ordinary encounter, while the hazy backgrounds evoke a distant childhood memory. Interesting how perspective shapes even our simplest shared experiences.
Cascade, 15.5” x 30”, 2024. Vibrant waves flow between rigid cardboard buildings, bringing an unpredictable force into a familiar cityscape. A small red figure watches as the water moves around him. Through the contrast between fluidity and structure, I explore the quiet, unsettling nature of change.
Oceanic Omen, 16’’ x 32” x 18’’, 2025. A towering wave threatens to engulf a tiny red figure surrounded by the wreckage of a collapsing world. Through jagged forms, deep blues, and fragmented structures, I capture the feeling of being overwhelmed by forces beyond our control, caught between chaos and quiet resignation.
Just Out of Reach, 27” x 31”, 2026. A broken ladder stretches toward a glowing window, promising an escape that can never be reached. Through distorted perspectives and frantic brushstrokes, I question our tendency to chase distant promises of happiness, only to discover that what we seek may have been an illusion all along.
Equinox, 16” x 40”, 2026. A solitary figure rests between cool blues and vibrant bursts of pink, red, and gold. Translucent cellophane blooms like flower petals and butterfly wings, bringing warmth into an otherwise still, crystalline world. Through the contrast between stillness and movement, warmth and chill, I explore how the things we surround ourselves with can change us, how even the coldest parts of ourselves can slowly begin to feel warmth again.