Installations

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Offerings (2025)

This diptych piece deals with peace and conflict. I mix 2D Chinese ink paintings on Italian Alcantara fabric with 3D materials such as fabricated rice bowls, real bullet shells as well as uncooked rice and present them as a single installation. The inspiration comes from my Chinese cultural tradition and my concern about the people who have been affected by war. 

In Asian culture, the term " Offerings" refers to mourning and remembering of the dead. The offering is a bowl of uncooked rice for the afterlife with sticks of incense positioned upright in the center of the bowl. 

For this pair, I juxtapose one peaceful image with another violent smoke to show the opposite but co-existed relationship between peace and war just like Yin and Yan. This work also offers audiences the chance to think about conflict and violence locally, nationally and internationally.    

 

Prairie Dragon (2024)

“Prairie Dragon”, a larger-than-life size creature, is constructed of locally harvested hay bales, corn stalks, mesh, and textiles. The 100 ft long outdoor installation sits on the ground of the Volland Foundation, an art gallery and community space in Alma Kansas. This site-specific Chinese haybale dragon is meant to bring good luck and the harvest for the farming community in rural Kansas as well as a celebration of 2024 dragon new year. It is a true collaboration between the artist and the local farmers. 

 

Continuity (2022)

 "Continuity" in the exhibition “Found in Translation: explorations by 8 contemporary artists” at The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art reflects on the connection between my past and present.  I incorporate figurative and landscape composition and continue using long hair to explore my Chinese identity as well as family tradition that I have passed on to my daughter, like a tree with deep roots growing on adopted land in the American Midwest.  ​​

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Haywire (2012)

My solo show " Haywire" took place at Lawrence Arts Center. The idea comes from my life experiences both in urban China and in rural Kansas.  The horizontal mixed media work “Prairie Waves” represents the open space and the flow of the Kansas Prairie. The room installation “Haywire”, however, reveals the sometimes claustrophobic and chaotic aspects of Chinese urbanization.  The massive electric wires are placed sporadically on the wall and connected to the telephone poles at the corners.  Two charcoal drawings of vanishing electric poles are painted directly on the walls. The commercial advertisements and posters are found on most billboards, available wall spaces as well as telephone poles. These are very real part of Chinese city life.  I attempt to replicate this overwhelmed Chinese urban street scene into a small gallery space.

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Environmental Study (2003)

This was my first outdoor piece inspired by the beauty of rural Maine. I created this work during my summer residency at Skowhegan in 2003.  I combined an old school desk with falling branches to represent a person’s education throughout lifetime. The stacked branches looked like strands of hair growing from the head (the old desk) and merging into the ground (the green lawn). The found materials are not permanent, so the work also suggests the loss of time and memory.