Ariel Sophabmisay: capstone

Abstract

The artist's statement: My oil painting practice revolves around the metamorphosis of identity, heritage, and femininity while taking place in eclectic pictorial spaces influenced by nature. As a biracial and first-generation Asian American, I create speculative narratives and surrealist figures that attempt to document my very recent family history and the hazy and dreamlike experience resulting from our diaspora. My painting style–consisting of glazing techniques with a multitude of additive and subtractive layering–explores ideas of the finished versus the unfinished. I draw parallels between my paint application and the uncertainty of my cultural amalgam; an 'unfinished' warping of reality and what I believe my identity to be. My use of family and self-portraiture elevates our experiences to the realm of fine art, confronting the historical exclusion of our bodies from this space and hegemonic colonial representations. Through the exploration of memory and its impact on identity, I create surrealist landscapes where I challenge what womanhood, heritage, and strength in adversity can look like. Often riddled with allusions to art history, iconography, and metaphor, my deeply personal and contextual work allows me to explore my identity as an evolving state of becoming.