ARTIST STATEMENT
In 2021, eight people were murdered in an Atlanta massage parlor by a gunman targeting Asian women who he blamed for his sex addiction. Between March 2020 and August 2021, there were 11,000 hate crimes committed against Asians in the U.S. As an Asian American woman, I am exhausted by the need to remain constantly vigilant against those who might do me harm, and enraged by messaging from figures of authority which demonizes Asians, reducing them to an Alien Other deserving of abuse.
This is a portrait of an Asian woman in the face of hatred. She fades into the background like a submissive wallflower, yet she is a temptress, an exotic flower of forbidden fetishes. She is vilified for being an outsider and ogled for devouring barbaric food. She is an imagined creature seen through the lens of racism and misogyny. But behind these caricatures is a real woman, whose rage is as real as the meal in front of her. Her anger grows out of her head like tendrils, fed by the cruelty and inhumanity of a world gone mad.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lisa Chin was born in Iowa City, Iowa, she received a BA from Washington University in St. Louis and a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. She has worked for over 30 years as an architect in Chicago, Atlanta, and in New York City where she currently resides.
Lisa is a multidisciplinary artist, she started working in metals and exhibited her jewelry in group shows with New York City architects and designers. Later, she devoted herself to mixed media arts, creating shrunken bubble wrap collages that exhibited at the Robert L. Ringel Gallery at Purdue University, the Diane Kidd Gallery of Art at Tiffin University, and at the Mitchell Gallery at St. John’s College. Her 2015 work for the exhibit titled “Recycle” won “Most Innovative Use of Material” at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition’s National Juried Show. Her Illustration titled “Angels and Insects” will be on exhibit through September this year at the Annmarie Sculpture Garden in Maryland.
© Lisa Chin