Artist STatement

 I engage in rituals to keep memories alive.

 Phone calls at the same time every day, packing and unpacking luggage, eagerly waiting at Arrival and saying good-byes at Departure, getting into another long winding customs and border security line-- These rituals are performed by many immigrants, despite not knowing when or where the line ends.

As an artist of Taiwanese descent, I look for patterns and repetitions in behaviors of the immigrant family. As families separate and migrate, I recognize the invariable loss and the struggle to justify and reconcile the distance in between.

As we rely more on virtual means to stay in touch with distant loved ones, the wall of the digital screen blinds us to those close by and make us lose touch with reality. This translate into my work as I touch, wipe, rub, peel, and caress my drawing surfaces, giving the figures skin and weight. With each piece, I am constantly re-establishing my relationship to family, being conscientious of my distance to them physically and emotionally. My recent paintings and wall drawing installations document the fluid state between experience, memory, and place. Like well-worn film negatives, I revisit images, snapshots, and memories through iterations, until they begin to morph, overlap, and degrade.  The result may be an invitation to enter into an overwhelming yet familiar space, or only a flat wall with traces of history left visible.

Kathy Liao, 2019