Statement
As a physician artist, I am afforded a unique position to observe and analyze human nature on a broad spectrum, from highs to lows, and subsequently to transcend, personalize, and relate these findings into art works for others to see. This process is two fold, revealing and also self healing, striking a balance. I am a witness to the plays of fate, fortunate or less so, sometimes being able to make a change, even with slim margins, and often foreseeing unyielding futures. I strive to create works for others to see what I understand, so they understand what I see. For one can only see what one knows. I am confessing insights granted to me in my pursuit of what is human - mortal, fragile, but also beautiful, loving. Privacy is upheld. I tirelessly work to detangle the mysteries of the human body and mind as entrenched in the surrounding nature of our world, and this defines my visual pursuit.
I explore the idea of fate, the complete abandonment to it, as in a well rehearsed dance of a long known choreography to the tunes of a mysterious force ('dancers'). I am wondering if fate can be altered, especially for the most fragile, such as at-risk youth, and if there is a way to better the life of those whose fate seems already decided ('street smart'). I test to see if one can overcome this predetermination by reliving memories, emotions, desires, by learning from the past, connecting into present, and imagining alternative futures ('water hands'). Memories play a significant role in shaping one’s identity, and so they determine one’s fate. But memories, with every revival, seem to lose their adornments and filter down to essence. Reliving a memory too much leads to its fading away at the same rate as not thinking about it at all. A place exists where a memory should be kept, not too far in the deep nor too close to the surface ('motus corporis').
But as humans move, they get old, their abilities decrease, their acuity loosens. Memories get lost, the one body alters, imperceptibly, surely, permanently. Time extends and the human body diminishes. The anatomical drawings of the Renaissance, long intriguing to me, have been the standard of a perfect, perennial body. They have been the ideals to refer back to and continuously correct any perceived deviation. DaVinci's Vitruvian Man, a drawing of a man as part of a circle and a square, capturing the perfection of the human body, iterates that the human is a higher deity’s supreme creation, is the perfect geometric model of nature itself - the measure of all things. In my probing of this, the overwhelming surrounding reveals itself as the only perennial status quo. The measurement of nature, as once believed, fades into forgetfulness ('the measure of all things'). Our universe reveals itself as part of an even bigger one, and all around us is just the atoms and cells of another larger dimension. Trees seem like hairs on the skin of the earth, with deep roots reaching towards hearts, and eyes are blurred by the lost longed and branched desires. The human body dissolves into mingled dimensions, measurements lost, and the beauty of nature is disclosed into multitudes of micro and macro universes ('night swim').