IMPERMANENCE

Senior Solo Show

This series of work initially started with a theme of finding beauty in imperfection and transience. This idea was based on the term wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, incompleteness, and impermanence. Ironically, it felt so perfect at the time to create an imperfect project, to free myself from the constraints of perfectionism I have always strived for. Little did I know that this series would lean most heavily on the theme of transience, given the current circumstances in my life.

Following the death of two close family members, I was sent  into deep philosophical exploration as I grieved the loss of my loved ones. This body of work served as a place to work through all this grief, and gave me a chance to delve into  questions about life and death. I found myself constantly revisiting a place within me where memory seems to live. My goal for this body of work was to capture the feelings of old memories, the ones that seem to grow fuzzy when you focus on them too hard. Life feels all the more impermanent when all that is left of our loved ones are hazy memories. 

Vivid colors seem to reverberate off of one another, transporting the viewer into that dream-like subconsciousness where memories flood in and out. Layers of color and shape seem to flow over each other, entangled in a surreal space only seen in a dream, where there is harmony amongst dissonance. 

Loose ends of yarn, empty spaces, and imperfections left behind underline the sense of incompletion of life. There is no knowing when one’s life is complete. It can be cut short before you have done all that you wanted to do. There is a painful beauty in this transience; that one's humanness is left behind along with all the imperfections they didn't get around to perfecting yet.