Memories Series 2024

My work is a reflection of labor, space, and memory rooted in the environments I have inhabited and the materials I have encountered. I combine and transform found materials to reconstruct physical and emotional texture. I have worked for Amazon, in the military, in a nail salon - all with very distinct types of physical labor and environments. My practice focuses on the intimate exploration of work - specifically, the repetitive and intensive process that goes unseen. I shred my old artworks, repurposing them into new pieces, allowing past narratives to be woven into the present through deconstruction and transformation. Through this approach, I embody the act of labor itself, by breaking down materials, reassembling, and translating materials into a
visual language. This involved process, I create compositions that compel the viewer to stop and consider. Completed works challenge the perceptions of value and routine, and encourages a deeper reflection of unseen and overlooked aspects of labor.I draw inspiration from watching my grandmother, who came from Vietnam to raise me and my siblings. Everyday she cared for us. She consistently cooks, cleans and watches over us. At the age of eighty-four, she tends to her garden. She pulls weeds, planting seeds, rearranging the land with her hands. Her effort was not always grand or celebrated, but it was consistent and full of care. She never wasted food nor materials; she always found the use for them. My grandmother’s ethic and caidance of using materials stays with me.