The Sculpture of David was destroyed in the square
Siyuan Tan
Sculpture
23*22*17″
2019
(New York)
My work connects two co-existing spaces. By copying and destroying them, the intersection of human reality, society as well as virtual space, are explored.
Siyuan Tan was born in Fuxin, China, in 1984, and graduated with an MFA in sculpture from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta, in 2018. Tan’s work not only showcases a skillful artisanship, at the same time, reflects humorous and nearly sarcastic wisdom in his play with sociopolitical and cultural icons and significances from both the East and the West.
Interview of Siyuan Tan
Your work The Sculpture of David Was Destroyed in The Square (2019) resembles a lot to the recent vandalism of confederate statues across America in the wake of Gorge Floyd’s death. What was your original inspiration for creating this piece, and what is your understanding of destruction in arts?
Let’s talk about the initial inspiration for this piece. A while back when I was looking through photos taken during my childhood and family travels, I noticed that in almost every photo of the sculptures in these sites had been vandalized or defaced. There would me messages written on the surface of the sculptures like “so-and-so visited here, so-and-so I love you and so on.” Then I learned from the older generation’s memories and some history books about the destruction of cultural relics during the Cultural Revolution, where people went crazy over ancient sculptures and architectures. During my travels to Europe that I also saw a lot of graffiti and damage flooding the classical sculptures. This act of taking out national consciousness, political ideas, and personal emotions on inanimate materials created an interest in my research. I wondered what it was that made a group of people develop some kind of intense emotions towards simply processed stones, woods, steels, and concretes, to the extent that they have to be removed and overturned. You see some people now in America, Black or white, demanding the removal of confederate statues. As an Asian person and a foreigner, it is really not my place to have an opinion. However, if a part of dark history is being glorified through the medium of sculptures and revokes the pain of the victims, then the sculpture is unquestionably problematic.
Secondly, I would like to talk about my understanding of art being destroyed. I think that any work of art will eventually be destroyed, even if there is no human involvement, the erosion of time will eventually destroy them. The classics that we can still appreciate today carry so much meaning and special emotion that we try our best to preserve them. Though, there can be so many unpredictable variations that any changes can put the work at high risk. At the same time, I also think these works can be resilient if they have already survived hundreds of years.
I understand that you were trained in traditional sculptural practice, what is your understanding of the different styles in sculptures between the West and the East?
Yes, I was trained in very traditional Western classical realist sculpture. However, the interesting thing is that this long training was done in China.
In contemporary understanding, Eastern sculpture is mainly characterized as impressionistic, while Western sculpture is mainly about realism. In the primitive period, however, the characteristics of Eastern and Western sculpture were not very different and there were many similarities. The formal differentiation should have occurred at the end of the Warring States period, the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, while the West should have been at the end of the Classical period, the beginning of the Hellenistic period. (Around 300 B.C.) Of course, the styles of Eastern and Western sculpture were influenced by geography, ethnicity, politics, economics, and warfare. I believe we have to also consider the two civilizations of farming and maritime — the more mature they become, the more prominent they are in their art.
As an Asian artist living and working in America, what is the biggest challenge in your artistic endeavor?
I think the biggest challenge would be to find my self-identity. In fact, the way I was trained as a child to observe, to draw, and to understand art are all based on Western aesthetic standards. It controlled my aesthetics, trapped my way of thinking, and limited my interest in other art forms. This pattern of education led me to focus, even admire solely, the masterpieces of Western art history. My upbringing, however, was entirely in the East, which led to a lack of understanding not only of my own country’s art history, but also of Eastern art as a whole. I had a great deal of distrust and skepticism in my artwork. It was only after I came to the United States that I realized the impact of the long “colonization” of art education on me. I have lost sight of the essence of my own culture and have lost the ability to judge different cultures.
In the last two years, there have been many rebellious and destructive elements in my work, which is my instinct from within and also my subjective will. The intent was not only to have the intention of breaking the long-standing control of basic aesthetic education over my thoughts, but also to re-examine my cultural origins and to seek self-identification. So, you can see in David, I not only wanted to smash the classics of Western culture, which are fed by the capitalist aristocracy, I also used the graffiti to vandalize the surface. I feel as if I were a blue-collar worker, I want to use these cheap, convenient industrial products that are also the source of the blood and sweat that these capitalists are extracting from us, as a weapon to fight back.
We see a trend in the globalization of arts, as a transcultural artist, what could be your biggest concern?
I think every artist has a lot of concerns in this globalizing world, but I think multiple sources of information can be a supply to the creative process. I used to be interested in the changes in international relations, especially the political trends between China and the United States in recent years, as well as network information security, high technology products and so on. Of course, as a minority living in the United States, racism is still the biggest issue.
But after this epidemic, my biggest concern is my health.
During this pandemic, have you been experimenting with new methods in making art? Can you talk about a little bit about your recent paper-based work?
Yes, during this epidemic I experimented with many creative methods. Because of the space limitations, my first phase was mainly acrylic paintings on canvas in small sizes. In the second phase, I switched to paper and started experimenting with watercolor and paper. I’ve also started learning how to make sculptures on the computer and hope to print them out when the epidemic situation gets better.
In addition, the core idea of these recent works on paper is still based on the research direction of “the connection between real space and imaginary space”. My previous thinking in this regard was concretized in the connection between human social life and virtual networks. But the epidemic has forced me to isolate myself, and while living in a limited space, far away from the social world. Connecting to the outside world, an important aspect of my work, has become a luxury. I had to re-examine my relationship with the outside world and where the work was heading next.
I read a number of books on the relationship between inside and outside, on energy transitions, and one of them was on East Asian shamanic culture. It claims that people have an energy called “灵(spirit).” This energy cannot be seen or touched, but it is present in the body. The shaman can perform rituals to cause the “spirit” to be transferred to other living beings to receive warnings and wisdom from nature. And as a Manchu living in Northeast Asia, I saw these shamans at a very young age through their dancing rituals. These new realizations, that are related to my memories and identity, opened up new avenues for my research. Therefore, I began to look for ways to represent the spirits by using colors. At first, I used basic warm and cold contrasts to distinguish between the two energies of real and imaginary. Then I discovered a principle and instrument for thermal imaging, so I started to experiment a lot with these contrasting. Also experimenting complementary warm and cold colors to represent the visual state of the two energies when they meet. In all the images, which are related to life, I cut out specific tissues and organs, except for the eyes. Because the eyes are an important means of psychic energy in shamanic rituals, and also, the eyes are a very significant for East Asians. The special treatment of the eyes is in fact my way of expressing my identity.
Dragon
Pierre Alivon
Sculpture
100cm(h)
2020
(Beijing)
My inspiration comes from a short but powerful voice from world leaders: “We are at war.” In order to fight the epidemic, everyone has become a soldier.
Pierre Alivon/苏善书 is French photographer, sculptor and art curator in Beijing. Pierre makes a new adventure of each exhibition that transports you into asserted universes, while establishing a bridge between his / our French sensibility and contemporary Chinese culture.
Interview of Pierre Alivon
As an international artist, how do you make of the borders such as nation, race, gender, class and so forth?
I am not interested in race, gender and social class. For me, the influence of a country is not politics but the people who live in that country. What is interesting is to understand the artistic springs mixed with the culture of the country. The only border that can exist is the formalization of the emotions of human beings which are identical but formalize in another way. When you are an international artist it is to find a universal language for all cultures where the cultural reference of your own country becomes universal for mutual understanding. What interests me is to show the different facets of the human being through their emotions, we have a face for our friends, a face for our family, a face for each situation in our life, and we also have a face for ourselves and this is what interests me. My last photographic work which took me more than four years to realize it in Beijing, I named it “Opera of Silence”. More than 100 people met make up this series of photographic creations, a unique testimony behind the walls of the houses. Opéra du Silence invites us to discover the facade behind which some young Chinese people protect themselves. They do not let anything show through their interior life but have difficult lives and are often very alone. As in the traditional Peking Opera, the characters are exclusively male. By making up with traditional masks from this Opera, I wanted to express what I felt at their contact and show how much I was touched by the courage and determination of these boys. This photographic adventure allowed me to see the courage in the daily lives of these boys and to be touched to the heart just as much as they were.
During the pandemic in Beijing, have your artistic intention changed alongside the attitude of society to the global situation?
At the start of the pandemic, the international media had more economic than a human perspective. My gaze changed during this period, I wanted to express more solidarity. When the epidemic started in China I continued to take photographs daily to show the evolution of life in Beijing, as I have been doing since my arrival in 2015. I experienced these first difficult moments; with admiration, I met ordinary people who have transformed themselves into extraordinary people to help the community: health workers, transport staff, police and many others. All of them have found energy and a positive force in them, energy which is evoked by the dragon, symbol of universal force. But when we saw on television certain reports showing businessmen worried about their loss of turnover, I found that inappropriate compared to all these heroes who earn very little but who gave everything for all of us. In situations of crisis that we discover ordinary people revealing their generosity and other people revealing their selfishness. At the same time during the confinement, I made a sculpture called Dragon which is on the theme of global solidarity. My inspiration comes from a short but powerful voice of world leaders: “We are at war” In order to fight the epidemic, everyone has become a soldier. My sculpture “Dragon” is a dialogue around courage, dignity and human emotions of the peoples of the world. We must all feel responsible, caring and determined, which will give us the courage to face this difficult event together. We need a universal brotherhood. All the citizens of the world become soldiers to fight the epidemic. The first to fight it is the Chinese. The figure in the statue listens to music while looking at the sky and dreams of kissing his parents, pampering his children, living poetic moments with friends. He thinks of a world of solidarity that will be a victory not only against the epidemic but against all future crises that could assail humanity in the 21st century.
Photography has 150-year history already, and do you think it has the creative potential, and in which direction you tried to achieve by taking photographs?
We are in a world of image and technological performance, photography is an infinite creative medium as long as the human being has the capacity for imagination. The plastic aspect of photography evolves with technological evolution which opens up its tremendous creative potential. I belong to this family of intuitive and sensitive photography, which does not show the world as it is, but as we feel it. Also in the images of Beijing that I deliver as well as in my sculptures, there is an intention of testimony, a documentary intention of human emotions. I never stop on the surface of things, I hope to train the viewer to see beyond my artistic work and ourselves. I tell a human story on the back of my own story. With my Leica M, I’m in the scene, I hear the breath and the human heart. To sum up, I would quote Robert Capa: “If your photos are not good enough, it is because you are not close enough”. Here is a photographic story that expresses the feeling of loneliness that millions of people experienced during confinement. This report taught me a lot about myself and allowed me to understand the importance of loving others … Memories of Silence In recent months, loneliness is a silence that settles around us during the pandemic, it has always been present in our contemporary society despite all the means of communication we have, especially in big cities like Beijing. Today’s forms of housing no longer allow the gathering of individuals for more socialization. Time management becomes essential and people no longer take the time for free discussion. Architecture, family, transport, communication, mass media, … a whole that, instead of provoking encounters, makes people lonely. During this pandemic, we all felt the silence that settled around from the U.S. This experience, supported by millions of people, can allow us to realize the importance of human contact. Loneliness can take different forms in big cities. It can be isolation. This is the case, for example, for immigrants or newcomers, who find it difficult to join a group. Suffering can also appear as a form of loneliness. We share the joy, the happiness, rarely the suffering of being alone. During this global pandemic, because it is collective, people have shared this suffering for the first time. This photographic report shows the memory of silence in Beijing during the epidemic. Loneliness in its etymology is: “the state of a deserted place” which takes all its meaning during the month of February 2020 in Beijing. Loneliness is a way of becoming aware of oneself and therefore of the relation to others. is a way to discover his inner self, his interiority, his uniqueness. I have hope that in the future each individual does not forget the importance of friendship and solidarity which are the true richness of life.
Which role do you recognise yourself in the contemporary globalised society, and can you talk about your ideal art ecology?
Recycling, recovery, “zero waste” … These are terms that we see more and more appear in everyday language, given that the health of the planet is very worrying. The artists are aware of the problems of overconsumption, which leads them to recover objects and materials to give them a second life. They are called recuperative artists. We forget that ecology is about living things as a whole, not just the human environment. For me if human beings accept to coexist with different cultures and to respect themselves, they will preserve nature because if they do not respect themselves how can they respect their environment? I try through my photographic work plastic and sculptor to awaken the universal feelings of each human being, which shows that the others are not that different, the epidemic has shown that all the people lived the same emotions even if the religions, cultures, policies of the countries are different. By respecting others, the borders of countries disappear. My ecological artistic approach is that it takes a new vision of others through mutual understanding to respect our planet.
Do you think the post COVID era would be different and will it influence your art-making?
This experience that everyone has lived will obviously have an impact on my next artistic works. I do not yet know how it will formalize but what I do know is that there will always be a relationship with solidarity.
Interview of Pierre Alivon
En tant qu’artiste international, comment faites-vous des frontières telles que la nation, la race, le sexe, la classe et ainsi de suite?
Je ne m’intéresse pas à la race , le sexe et à la classe sociale . Pour moi le rayonnement d’un pays n’est pas la politique mais les personnes qui vivent dans ce pays . Ce qui est intéressant c’est de comprendre les ressorts artistiques mêlés à la culture du pays . La seule frontière qui peut exister c’est la formalisation des émotions des êtres humains qui sont identiques mais se formalisent d’une autre façon. Quand on est artiste international c’est trouver une langue universelle pour toutes les cultures où la référence culturelle de son propre pays devient universelle pour une compréhension mutuelle.
Ce qui m’intéresse c’est montrer les différentes facettes de l’être humain à travers leurs émotions , nous avons un visage pour nos amis, un visage pour notre famille, un visage pour chaque situation de notre vie ,et nous avons aussi un visage pour nous-mêmes et c’est celui-ci qui m’intéresse. Mon dernier travail photographique qui m’a pris plus de quatre ans pour le réaliser à Pékin, je l’ai nommé « Opéra du Silence ». Ce sont plus de 100 personnes rencontrées qui composent cette série de création photographique, un témoignage unique derrière les murs des maisons.
Opéra du Silence nous invite à découvrir la façade derrière laquelle se protègent certains jeunes Chinois. Ils ne laissent rien transparaître de leur vie intérieure mais ont des existences difficiles et sont souvent très seuls. Comme dans l’Opéra de Pékin traditionnel les personnages sont exclusivement masculins.
En les maquillant avec des masques traditionnels issus de cet Opéra, j’ai voulu exprimer ce que j’ai ressenti à leur contact et montrer combien j’ai été touché par le courage et la détermination de ces garçons. Cette aventure photographique m’a permis de voir le courage au quotidien de ces garçons et d’être, tout autant qu’eux, touché au coeur.
Pendant la pandémie de Pékin, votre intention artistique a-t-elle changé parallèlement à l’attitude de la société face à la situation mondiale ?
Au début de la pandémie les media internationaux avaient un regard plus économique que humain. Mon regard a changé pendant cette période, j’ai voulu exprimer plus de solidarité. Lorsque l’épidémie a commencé en Chine j’ai continué à faire des photographies quotidiennement pour montrer l’évolution de la vie à Pékin, comme je le fais depuis mon arrivée en 2015. J’ai vécu ces premiers moments difficiles; avec admiration j’ai rencontré des personnes ordinaires qui se sont transformées en personne extraordinaire pour aider la collectivité : personnel de santé, de transport, police et bien d’autres. Tous ont trouvé l’énergie et une force positive en eux, énergie qui est évoquée par le dragon, symbole de la force universelle.
Mais quand on voyait à la télévision certains reportages montrant des hommes d’affaires inquiets de leur perte de chiffre d’affaires, je trouvais cela déplacé par rapport à tous ces héros qui gagnent très peu mais qui ont tout donné pour nous tous. Dans des situations de crise qu’on découvre des personnes ordinaires révélant leur générosité et d’autres personnes révélant leur égoïsme.
Parallèlement pendant le confinement j’ai réalisé une sculpture qui s’appelle Dragon qui est sur le thème de la solidarité mondiale. Mon inspiration vient d’une voix courte mais puissante des leaders mondiaux:” Nous sommes en guerre » Afin de combattre l’épidémie, tout le monde est devenu des soldats.
Ma sculpture « Dragon » est un dialogue autour du courage, de la dignité et des émotions humaines des peuples du monde. Nous devons tous nous sentir responsables, attentionnés et déterminés, ce qui nous donnera le courage d’affronter tous ensemble cette événement difficile. Nous avons besoin d’une fraternité universelle. Tous les citoyens du monde deviennent des soldats pour combattre l’épidémie. Les premiers à l’avoir combattue sont les chinois.
Le personnage de la statue écoute de la musique en regardant le ciel et rêve d’embrasser ses parents, de choyer ses enfants, de vivre des moments poétiques avec des amis. Il pense à un monde solidaire qui sera une victoire non seulement contre l’épidémie, mais contre toutes les futures crises qui pourraient assaillir l’humanité au XXIe siècle.
la photographie a déjà 150 ans d’histoire, et pensez-vous qu’elle a le potentiel créatif, et dans quelle direction vous avez essayé d’atteindre en prenant des photos?
Nous sommes dans un monde d’image et de performance technologique, la photographie est un media créatif infini tant que l’être humain a la capacité d’imagination. L’aspect plastique de la photographie évolue avec l’évolution technologique qui ouvre son formidable potentiel créatif.
J’appartiens à cette famille de la photographie intuitive et sensible, qui ne montre pas le monde tel qu’il est, mais tel qu’on le ressent. Aussi dans les images de Pékin que je livre ainsi que dans mes sculptures, il y a une intention de témoignage, une intention documentaire des émotions humaines.
Je ne m’arrête jamais à la surface des choses, j’espère entraîner le spectateur à voir au-delà de mon travail artistique et de nous-mêmes. Je raconte une histoire humaine à revers de ma propre histoire. Avec mon Leica M je suis dans la scène , j’entends la respiration et le coeur humain. Pour résumer je citerais Robert Capa : « Si vos photos ne sont pas assez bonnes, c’est que vous n’êtes pas assez proches ».
Voici une histoire photographique qui exprime le sentiment de solitude que des millions de personnes ont vécus pendant le confinement. Ce reportage m’a appris beaucoup sur moi-même et m’a permis de comprendre l’importance d’aimer les autres… Souvenir du Silence
Ces derniers mois, la solitude est un silence qui s’installe autour de nous pendant la pandémie , elle a toujours été présente dans notre société contemporaine malgré tous les moyens de communication dont nous pouvons disposer, particulièrement dans les grandes villes comme Pékin .
Les formes d’habitat d’aujourd’hui ne permettent plus le rassemblement des individus pour plus de sociabilisation. La gestion du temps devient primordiale et les personnes ne prennent plus le temps de ladiscussion gratuite. L’architecture, la famille, les transports, la communication, les mass médias, … tout un ensemble qui, au lieu de susciter la rencontre, rend l’homme plus seul. Durant cette pandémie nous avons tous ressenti ce silence qui s’installe autour de nous. Cette expérience supportée par des millions de personnes peut nous permettre de réaliser l’importance du contact humain. La solitude peut prendre différentes formes dans les grandes villes. Elle peut être un isolement. C’est le cas, par exemple, pour les immigrants ou les nouveaux venus, qui ont du mal à intégrer un groupe. La souffrance peut apparaître également comme une forme de solitude. Nous partageons la joie, le bonheur, rarement la souffrance d’être seul. Pendant cette pandémie mondiale, du fait qu’elle soit collective, les personnes ont pour une première fois partagé cette souffrance. Ce reportage photographique montre la mémoire du silence à Pékin pendant l’épidémie. La solitude dans son étymologie est : “l’état d’un lieu désert » qui prend tout son sens pendant le mois de février 2020 à Pékin. La solitude est une manière de prendre conscience de soi et donc du rapport aux autres. C’est un moyen de découvrir son moi profond, son intériorité, son unicité. J’ai l’espoir que dans le futur chaque individu n’oublie pas l’importance de l’amitié et de la solidarité qui sont la vraie richesse de la vie.
Quel rôle vous reconnaissez-vous dans la société globalisée contemporaine, et pouvez-vous parler de votre écologie artistique idéale?
Recyclage, récupération, «zéro déchet»… Voilà des termes qu’on voit de plus en plus apparaître dans le langage de tous les jours, étant donné que la santé de la planète est très préoccupante.
Les artistes prennent conscience des problèmes de surconsommation, ce qui les amène à récupérer des objets et matériaux pour leur offrir une seconde vie. On les appelle les artistes récupérateurs et récupératrices.
Nous oublions que l’écologie concerne les êtres vivants dans leur ensemble, et non seulement l’environnement humain.
Pour moi si les êtres humains acceptent de coexister avec différents cultures et de se respecter, ils préserveront la nature car si ils ne se respectent pas eux-mêmes comment peuvent-ils respecter leur environnement ? J’essaye par mon travail photographique plasticien et de sculpteur d’éveiller les sentiments universels de chaque être humain, qui montre que les autres ne sont pas si différents que cela, l’épidémie a montré que tous les peuple vivaient les même émotions même si les religions, cultures , politiques des pays sont différentes. En respectant les autres, les frontières des pays disparaissent. Mon approche artistique écologique est qu’il faut une nouvelle vision des autres par une compréhension mutuelle pour respecter notre planète .
Pensez-vous que l’ère post covid serait différente et va-t-elle influencer votre art?
Cette expérience que tout le monde a vécu aura évidemment un impact sur mes prochains travaux artistiques. Je ne sais pas encore comment cela ça va se formaliser mais ce que je sais c’est qu’il y aura toujours un rapport avec la solidarité.
Untitled
Jeremy Silva
Sculpture
30.5″ X 17″D (Inc. Driftwood)
2019-2020
(New York）
Growing up in a religious environment in Hawaii as a gay man, I was bullied and isolated until I found nature as my sanctuary. My work is based on the realization of our surroundings and the consciousness of the nature that we take for granted.
Jeremy Silva was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii and has lived in New York City for the past 18 years. As a multi-media artist, Silva’s work ties closely to his upbringing. Growing up as a queer person living in a religious household, Silva could only turn to nature for supports, comforts, and inspiration. His sculptures represent the enormity of earth’s power and the fine balance between peace and tumult, organic and structural, the known and the unexpected found in the realms of nature.
Interview of Jeremy Silva
Most of your work is untitled, can you tell us why?
I don’t name any of my work because I feel like they get boxed in with names. It puts a pre perceived image in people minds. I like people to use their own free imaginations on what they see.
Why do you use glass as your creative medium, what is the significance?
I use glass as one of my main mediums because it reminds me of playing with hot lava as a child in Hawaii, and when it cools it looks very organic, fluid and alive to me.
I understand that you also use cement as your paints, can you talk a little bit about this discovery?
Yes, I paint on them using black top pavement paint. For years I was looking for a type of paint I could use on glass, but everything I found in art stores etc. looked cheap. One day I was sealing my blacktop driveway at my country house and when the black sealer dried on my hands like hard rock, it hit me that it just might work on glass, so I did a quick experiment, and it worked so perfectly! Not only does it not come off the glass, but when it dries it looks and feels like fresh lava rock to me. I love the fragile nature of the transparent glass and the sturdiness and opaqueness of the black, it’s like a yin and yang, the fragile and the strong, sky and earth, water and earth.
I understand that you have to pause your entire production because of the lockdown, have you ever considered experimenting with new mediums that might be more accessible?
I have had to pause blowing in new work with my team in the glass studio, but I have a few cooled pieces I have never finished that I have been working on in my personal studio during this lockdown. But yes, I have been on the search for new more accessible mediums to play with. I am wanting to do wall art of some sort, and am considering doing something on canvas, but have not been inspired enough to try anything yet. I am a firm believer that when the time is right and I am inspired in the right ways it will come to me, just like my sculptures have. I am very patient with my process, and never like to rush anything.
I have heard that you were almost scammed by a fake collector during this quarantine, can you talk a little bit about this incident?
Yes, it was a very elaborate and believable scheme. It started with an email through my website. He was looking to purchase a piece with a story of how it was a gift for his wife and their anniversary. He said he needed it quickly because they were relocating to the Philippines. I sent him my inventory, and when he chose a piece, he said he would overnight a check to me but with more money on the check that he wanted me to take out once the check cleared to give the extra to his own “ art shippers “ when they come to pick up my work, which at first seemed ok to me. But luckily, I found out it was a scheme prior to getting the check because I was telling the story to my best friend, artist David Paul kay, and he realized it was the exact kind of scheme that had happened to him prior. How it works is they send you the check, you cash the check, and it once it clears enough for me to take out the extra amount, they come right away to pick up your work and the cash. But then the bank will find out later on that it was a fraudulent check and take back the money, plus you have to pay back the extra you took out, and then you will have to prove you are not part of this scheme. And you just had your work stolen on top of it all. I am lucky it didn’t play out that way. I got the check and have reported it to the Secret Service and the bank they used on the fraudulent check. They have not been found and most likely never will be found.
Growing up as a queer person in a conservative household in Hawaii, would you say this upbringing had paved the way for your creative journey?
Yes, in the biggest way! I grew up in a very Catholic family, and a part of my family were what I believe to be very fanatic about it, like the end of the world is coming, rosary praying fanatic. I would always hear about how evil gay people were, and how they are going to hell etc. With all those guilty feelings I had inside knowing I was gay and being really bullied in school made me want to be away from it all as much as possible, so I spent a lot of time in nature alone. Just from being in the kind of unique nature that surrounded me from such an early age, the ocean, the sea animals (my fav were the dolphins), the lava flows, and a huge tropical garden I built in the back of my parents’ yard. I quickly realized, from these experiences, how alive, connected and conscious everything around us is. Because of these connections I felt, I could see how we were/are treating the planet in the wrong ways. I saw how we just take, take and take without love or understanding of everything’s roll in our environment. I could see how religion poisons our minds and views of the world in so many ways and how man made & fake it all really is.
My work is a reflection of those feelings, experience’s and knowledge. They are my voice! They are my way of opening people’s minds to who and what is around them, and hopefully get them to show the world more love and respect.
Facing a global pandemic and a structural change, as an artist, do you have any new revelation?
To be honest nothing exactly new from my point of view. But I think for the first time the rest of the world is starting to really see how truly connected everyone and everything is. It gives me hope that we might start to truly wake up and change how we live on this planet. To see the wrong path, we are one as a species. I’d love to see us work on repairing the damage we have caused. But I guess only time can tell.
