INSTALLATIONS & VISUAL ART


mountainriver

"mountainriver" is a cross-cultural riff on the meaning of diaspora ("scattered seeds" in Greek) and the complexities of the diasporic experience. The installation takes its name from the Chinese literary term for "country" or "homeland," formed by the characters shan (mountain) and ho (river). Drawings of hugely magnified fruit stones reference Chinese landscape painting as well as Western visual traditions, to explore the topography of the seed and suggest its self-contained potential as home.

Rendered in graphite or aquarellestick on translucent Mylar at approximately 300 times their relative scale, each fruit stone image takes on a mountain-like presence that emphasizes its subject's dual nature as both stone and seed. The images float in undefined space, referencing the unlocated void of traditional Chinese landscape painting. By focusing on drawing as an act of seeing and selective representation, "mountainriver" emphasizes the relativity of perception in diasporic identity.

Rendered in graphite or aquarellestick on translucent Mylar at approximately 300 times their relative scale, each fruit stone image takes on a mountain-like presence that emphasizes its subject's dual nature as both stone and seed. The images float in undefined space, referencing the unlocated void of traditional Chinese landscape painting. By focusing on drawing as an act of seeing and selective representation, "mountainriver" emphasizes the relativity of perception in diasporic identity.

Wall texts ranging from a Thoreau quote to a 13th c. Chinese text on scholar's stones— valued for their cosmos-in-miniature suggestions of mountain-river landscapes—form another integral part of the installation, as spatial hyperlinks between the notions of seed, stone and diaspora. Narrative fragments describe experiences of diasporic dislocation, ending with three lines from a Tang dynasty poem that appear on my father's tombstone— in America, far from his original homeland:

scenery seems no different
yet looking up, unfamiliar
mountainriver

Mixed media installation; drawings from 20" x 24" to 84" x 108"; graphite and aquarelle stick on prepared Mylar, polyester mesh, aluminum, fruit stones, steel tables, vinyl wall text.

2002