American Exodus
As a painter, I never simply copy a historical photograph. Rather, I try to make new paintings from them. With this new body of paintings, I would like to summon the ghosts from Dorothea Lange’s brilliant photographs of the 1930s done for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration. Not only the famous pictures, but those in which I find the kinds of faces and poses I have long painted using Chinese photographs. I also identify personally with Ms. Lange’s photographs since I am myself an immigrant from China and was also caught up in wars, famines, and revolutions there, often forcing my family to migrate elsewhere. As an American citizen, I am very passionate about now painting American subjects who remind me so much of those of my homeland.
As a painter, I never simply copy a historical photograph. Rather, I try to make new paintings from them. With this new body of paintings, I would like to summon the ghosts from Dorothea Lange’s brilliant photographs of the 1930s done for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration. Not only the famous pictures, but those in which I find the kinds of faces and poses I have long painted using Chinese photographs. I also identify personally with Ms. Lange’s photographs since I am myself an immigrant from China and was also caught up in wars, famines, and revolutions there, often forcing my family to migrate elsewhere. As an American citizen, I am very passionate about now painting American subjects who remind me so much of those of my homeland.
