America is my adopted home. It is a home where I am alone; I have no relatives. The making photographs of people provides me an opportunity to reach out to establish connections with strangers—maybe even relationships—based not on inherited genetics but rather on trust.
Photographic portraiture is my passion. A successful portrait induces an involvement—much in the same way that connections with another in life can lead to commitment of interest and concern. There is a need to know about this person: his/her state of mind, emotional situation, clues about the past, hints about the future and assertion of significance. As unlikely as it may seem the interaction between a portrait and the view of the image replicates transaction between two individuals in life. Baldwin Lee, my mentor in photography, insists that a consequential photograph has to be about something. He states further that an ambitious photograph has to be about more than what the viewer knows.
A photograph is a member of the beaux arts and therefore has to abide by the requisite expectations. What happens and how it happens within the rectangle is a challenge that must be resolved by the photographer. It is insufficient for the subject to be good; the photograph must be good.
My ambitions for my photographs continually grows. The strategies of my current work reflect my interest in extending—in terms of length of time and also in depth of involvement—the viewer has with my work. Due to my other life, as a student in filmmaking and film theory classes at the University of Tennessee, I have been introduced to the concept of prolonged vision. The 1895 Édouard Vuillard painting The Album, utilizes secondary imagery (background) to function in a suggestive manner that enhances and channels the meaning of the primary subject. The background serves to create prolonged vision. My earlier work largely minimized the space in which my subjects lived. The background was purposely diminished in visual and thematic significance. My current work is an exploration of the possibilities of creating prolonged vision by juxtaposing a figure against a rear-projected image with the hope of a creating correlative combination. My hope is for a result that falls somewhere on a spectrum become credible narrative and impressionistic fantasy.
Photographic portraiture requires the photographer and the subject to be fully aware of the scripted choreography taking place in an artificial environment. Taking pictures while traveling offers an entirely different photographic experience. The control is no longer mine; instead I assume the role of a detached observer. These are the circumstances from which my images of backgrounds result.
I make photographic portraits because they hold the possibility of telling stories. These stories originate as my personal stories and transform into stories for everyone. Stories are about who we are—our personal interiority—and as such are grounded, not in abstract concepts, but rather in the essence of being. The stories I wish to tell reflect my identity: I am a woman, a mother, an Asian immigrant living in the American south. I am all of these but I am still a loner. Stories not only offer narrative but they also pose questions. The persistent questions for me are about the difficulties encountered and endured in attempting to live a life of dignity. I question the consequences created because of the division between the majority and marginalized. Why should the majority—with its vested power and position—find it necessary to maintain a system the subjugates the minority. Why should some suffer, not because of they do, but who they are?
The sense of unease arises within me far too often. Having the obvious conveyed to me—that I am different—is hurtful and dismaying. My work in portraiture is my attempt to re-establish justice where each person is treated, not as a representative of a group, but rather as an autonomous individual whose dignity originates from his/her uniqueness.
I make photographic portraits because I believe it is possible for an artwork to seduce a viewer from his world into one created by the artist; a new and better world where clarity and purpose triumph over confusion and prejudice and hatefulness are supplanted with respect, dignity, fairness and justice.