Artist Statement

My studio practice investigates the expressive possibilities of the line as it expands from drawing into sculpture, casting, and spatial installation. Working with thread, latex, acetate, and cast forms, I explore how a line can move through space with tension, vulnerability, and resilience. I treat thread as a three-dimensional mark—one that responds to shifting structures, resists complete control, and reveals unexpected configurations. This negotiation between intention and unpredictability parallels the processes I value in teaching, where flexibility, responsiveness, and openness to discovery are essential to artistic growth.

The conceptual foundations of my work emerge from lived experiences shaped by migration, instability, and resilience. My family immigrated from Hong Kong to the United States when I was two, seeking safety from the political uncertainty preceding the 1997 transfer of sovereignty. Early experiences—including a near-fatal car accident, the loss of loved ones, serious illness, witnessing 9/11 firsthand, and navigating the global uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic—deepened my awareness of how external forces shape the body, memory, and identity. These histories inform my interest in fragility, transformation, and the ways structures shift under pressure.

Thread carries personal, cultural, and symbolic resonance. It connects to the labor histories of my grandmother and mother—both garment workers whose craftsmanship shaped their survival—and to mythological narratives such as the Three Fates, whose threads of life intertwine agency and destiny. In my work, thread becomes a metaphor for both inheritance and possibility, a material that asserts its own path even as I guide it through form. 

Casting extends this inquiry by preserving traces of tension, collapse, and reconfiguration. These cast sculptures act as imprints of past states and gestures, materializing the transitions and negotiations that cannot be fully controlled. The works become physical analogs to the reflective processes I encourage in teacher candidates: acknowledging the unexpected, learning from transformation, and recognizing how external contexts shape practice.

My sculptures emerge from a sustained dialogue between control and surrender. They map delicate trajectories across space, embodying fragility, resilience, and ongoing change. In both my studio work and my teaching, I am drawn to how structure, chance, memory, and material agency intersect—and to how these forces shape both artistic form and human experience.