Completion

For those of you who missed Senior Ex, here’s my artwork.

The set of photographs deal with Asian and American identity, and the consequential struggle that results from trying to meet expectations and establish a specific identity for oneself.

Red, blue, and yellow reference the primary colors of the color wheel, and were selected in order to simply convey the idea that the three photographs are meant to be viewed as one collection of work.

The title Completion alludes to the fact that the subjects are all graduating college students, and with completion comes expectations.

The first image is a reference to Auguste Rodin’s, The Thinker, statue, which depicts a man in deep contemplation. The original sculpture is modernly interpreted as a Humanist piece, which celebrates the intelligence of human beings. In my work, I reinterpret Rodin’s statue with the use of an Asian American subject. As graduating college students, under American expectations, we have reached a milestone. Our four additional years of education places us on an imaginary pedestal of achievement. However, under Asian expectations, the idea of an arts degree isn’t valued as much as - let’s say - an engineering degree; thus there is an internal struggle as to whether or not one has truly achieved anything at all.

The second photograph references the struggle to follow ones’ own path in life, versus meeting the expectations of others. As American students, we are given an array of subjects to choose from and succeed in - ranging from the arts to medicine. However, living under traditional Asian values, we are told that within those choices, a majority result in failure, and our parents are the ones who know that exact path to success. As we all should know, you can’t earn money and be happy at the same time.

The final image acts as a conclusion to the set. The model looks far off toward the two previous photographs (note: the images are shown left to right at the exhibition), which will assist the audience in noticing that the set consists of Asian subjects; thereby allowing viewers to question the artist’s intention in using Asians as the primary subjects to the work.

Why did I choose photography?

Instead of creating a huge epic painting that many people expected from me, I chose to present photographs because of its perceived lack of value. After all, taking a few photographs isn’t as difficult as painting… right?