motherland
32 x 27”, 2022
acrylic on linen
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Motherland depicts my first-generation Taiwanese grandfather visiting his parents’ home in China. Beside him stands my mother, wearing a skirt printed with a commanding language; on his other side, a lamp—an object I identified with for its size and jagged glow—lost in its own reflection. The image is based on one of the few photographs I took in the 1990s that captured the presence of all three generations of my family, each of us an immigrant to a new country. It conjures thoughts of our journeys; the bed, a place of rest, shadowing as turbulent waters between continents; and what it means to belong.
