ARTIST STATEMENT
Being an artist who grew up in the age of rage comics and other miscellaneous Facebook memes, I am deeply enthralled by internet ephemera. Under the guise of anonymity, people post all sorts of images. In my work, I employ ready made images from the internet and alter them, collage them and remix them in ways that make sense to me through a back and forth and often ludicrous story.
Humor is important to my work. I use humor as a means to subvert expectations of how I am supposed to behave. It feels like something that humanizes me and helps me relate to the world around me as an immigrant.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Anne-Joelle Tan is a Singaporean interdisciplinary artist currently working out of Chicago, Illinois. They recently graduated with a degree in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Anne-Joelle’s work explores the home, be it domestic or metaphorical, and internet ephemera through both oil paintings and paint skins. Being deeply interested in consumption and materiality, many of their work incorporates nontraditional materials such as milk, real human hair and satin ribbons to name a few. Their sculpture titled UTERO was most recently exhibited at CSI Project Space in Chicago. Anne-Joelle is similarly enamored by internet bohemia— they run an irreverent depressive meme page on Instagram which has been featured in multiple media outlets.
© Anne-Joelle Tan