Jessica Liu: There Is A Very Long Story
Through the reiterations of digital images and the material a story unfolds in fragments and interludes telling my lineage, transitions, and rebirth.
In these three website platforms (https://3148891.wixsite.com/jessicaliu , https://thereisaverylongstory.tumblr.com/ , https://3148891.wixsite.com/yessyca ) I construct a “living” and “breathing” vessel that can allow the viewer to recreate moments of strong connections between the self and the world. This narrative requires space, communication, and sensitivity achieved through the tensions of the intangible and tangible. The digital and material share one realm.
We so often see our personal histories as linear. In the experience of being the daughter of a single mother and first of the family line to be born outside of China, my work wants to say that there is so much more than a one directional story. Reconnection, appreciation, response. Listening, breathing, stillness. These three websites are intersectional and are responses to specific events where I gained perspective reconnecting to my own culture, father, and history.
The tension of using both the scanner and ink on canvas aligns with trying to bring these intangible moments and emotions to something that can be seen. With my education in the history and practice of traditional Chinese landscape painting I found there are similarities in the ancient art practice and using technology as a painting tool. There is a level of control and of chance. Much like the controlling and yielding to the ink simultaneously in Chinese landscape painting, I controlled several factors in the settings of a scan as well as moving lighting and the object in question, but the result was always a play with chance. The same concept applies to our personal narratives. There is a level of control, but I am particularly interested and fond of the “yielding”. This work encourages the viewer to do the same. To listen, interact, and yield to the telling of a human being’s story.
In these three website platforms (https://3148891.wixsite.com/jessicaliu , https://thereisaverylongstory.tumblr.com/ , https://3148891.wixsite.com/yessyca ) I construct a “living” and “breathing” vessel that can allow the viewer to recreate moments of strong connections between the self and the world. This narrative requires space, communication, and sensitivity achieved through the tensions of the intangible and tangible. The digital and material share one realm.
We so often see our personal histories as linear. In the experience of being the daughter of a single mother and first of the family line to be born outside of China, my work wants to say that there is so much more than a one directional story. Reconnection, appreciation, response. Listening, breathing, stillness. These three websites are intersectional and are responses to specific events where I gained perspective reconnecting to my own culture, father, and history.
The tension of using both the scanner and ink on canvas aligns with trying to bring these intangible moments and emotions to something that can be seen. With my education in the history and practice of traditional Chinese landscape painting I found there are similarities in the ancient art practice and using technology as a painting tool. There is a level of control and of chance. Much like the controlling and yielding to the ink simultaneously in Chinese landscape painting, I controlled several factors in the settings of a scan as well as moving lighting and the object in question, but the result was always a play with chance. The same concept applies to our personal narratives. There is a level of control, but I am particularly interested and fond of the “yielding”. This work encourages the viewer to do the same. To listen, interact, and yield to the telling of a human being’s story.
