Tower of Babel Drawing

My paintings are symptoms of the residual imprint born of my heritage. Interlinked with the question of being in a Western culture. I am a British born Chinese artist. Art history is synonymous with religiosity and meaning that modernity has diminished. I use one of the earliest forms of human art (Chinese ink painting) as a metaphor for history. And, still life, realism and portraiture (Western themes) as symbols for modernity. In light of such historical, symbolic and cultural hangovers. I focus my practice on the failures and limitations of 'the self' to navigate its path to 'the good life'. By which I mean 'how do we to repurpose or disavow the tools inherited from our history and culture?' to live in harmony with an ever-changing scientific and secular age. My technique has more in common with Renaissance oil painting. I paint in layers on rice paper, as opposed to an illustrative or calligraphic nature. My subjects engage a universal interpretation and a sense of familiarity. Yet I push back against the familiar by adding layer upon layer of brush strokes. This corruption of imagery introduces a sense of failure, destruction, and confusion. The conflation of these ideas amounts to the core theme in my practice. What is the value of meaning in the struggle of tradition itself against the modern era? We are lead to believe that a meaningful existence is a path to a good life. Yet the past, present, and future are inescapable conundrums for the nature of being. My paintings house the paradox of the 'the known and the unknown'. They are caught in the Sisyphean and futile search for an answer. Yet within the milieu, they confront the dogma of meaning; if at all there was any meaning to begin with.