Tucked Away

Artist Statement: This piece is based on an alleyway in Shanghai, the city I was born in and lived in for part of my childhood. It is, as one might expect, a vastly different landscape from Anchorage. Seeing this photo of a lone tree, framed by buildings, inspired me to reflect on urban green spaces (and often their scarcity). Although Shanghai is still a place I hold dear to my heart, I’m also grateful to live in a city surrounded by such untamed and natural beauty. With this piece I intended to juxtapose the urban and the natural, while also creating an immersive and rich tactile landscape. I leaned heavily on physical textures to invoke the senses. I created depth through three-dimensional effects and layering, and left the borders irregular to add to the immersiveness of the piece. While the piece includes materials such as fabric, wire, gel medium, and more, cardboard was particularly prominent. I was drawn to cardboard because it is versatile when torn, cut, and disassembled. I wanted to break away from the stiff rectangular canvases of traditional landscapes and exposed the raw edges of the cardboard to add an organic element. Moreover, I felt that recycling it and giving it a new life was important and appropriate given the themes of humans and the environment. While creating this piece, I was inspired by the works of contemporary artists Eva Jospin, Sarah Meyers Brent, and Gregory Euclide. All three artists were formative influences while figuring out how I wanted to use cardboard or blend two- and three-dimensional landscapes.