US News Center
September 15th, 2021
As anticipation builds over the reopening of the Chinese American Museum (CAM), a new exhibition is being prepared to showcase the work of seven Asian American muralists inspired by what each derived from their experiences of the past year.
Collective Resilience: Asian American Artists Honoring Our Community’s Strength and Unity opens this Saturday, Sept. 18, allowing museum visitors to experience up-close-and-personal the murals that have been painted directly onto CAM’s gallery walls.
Individually, the works include explorations into the relationship between (in)justice and social movements, the confluence of (mixed) identity and heritage, and connections between storytelling and communication.
Brooklyn, N.Y.-based curator Albert Chau convened Asian American and Pacific Islander artists from different backgrounds and regions. For the exhibit, Chau looked for artists who have a story to tell. He previously curated the Year of the Ox, an online exhibition launched in 2020.
Collective Resilience will run through March 27, 2022. Special limited hours are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Featured in CAM’s reopening exhibition are:
Bodeck Luna
An immigrant artist from Manila, Philippines, Luna creates pieces that explore the relationship between nostalgia, social empowerment, and decolonization. Modern society’s heavy reliance on disposable technology and consumerism is a recurring theme in his work. His background in street art heavily influences his figurative paintings, illustrations, and murals. In 2018, Luna was appointed as the Art Director for the first annual Long Beach Filipino Festival, and in 2020, he was invited to host a lecture on street art and activism at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Lauren YS楊蜘蛛
Signature style for Los Angeles-based Lauren YS is high-chroma design with elements interwoven with dynamic portraiture. Their works ranging from large-scale murals to multi-layered pieces on canvas draw inspiration from queer worlds, non-binary identities, elements interwoven with dynamic portraiture creates lush, florid pictorial portals to worlds that are as just as they are visually captivating. From large-scale murals to multi-layered works on canvas, YS’ work draws inspiration from queer worlds, non-binary identities, mythology, mixed Asian American heritage, and more.
Saelee Oh
Saelee Oh is a multidisciplinary visual artist in Los Angeles, where she was born and raised as a Korean American with dual cultural identities. Experiencing the limitations of language in written and verbal form inspired her to find expression through art. She has worked as an independent artist with fine art gallery shows, including the Jonathan LeVine Gallery, Giant Robot, New Image Art Gallery, and Japanese American National Museum. She has given lectures and presentations at Harvard University, Saint Lawrence University, Otis College of Design and Parsons School of Design.
Evah Fan
Evah Fan is an artist and illustrator whose work is sometimes the size of a pecan. She has been exhibiting work since 2003 in numerous cities across the U.S. and abroad with solo exhibitions in Paris, Tokyo, Taipei, and San Francisco. Her work was featured in Juxtapoz, Monocle and The New York Times. She studied for her master’s degree at Konstfack in Stockholm and shares a studio with her husband, two daughters, and two cats.
Kris Chau
Kris Chau is an independent artist currently working and living in Los Angeles. She was
born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Chinese Vietnamese refugees. Draftsperson, illustrator, printmaker, painter, and designer — each role is a different way for her to reflect and understand shared human conditions. She is inspired by various folk arts from different cultures that inform her imagery and storytelling. Her ambition is to create art that is easily understood, uniting us in communication for a better shared future for all.
kaNO
Born and raised on the streets of New York City, kaNO discovered art at a very early age. Graffiti on walls and cartoons on TV set the tone for his creative childhood. He obtained a BFA in Animation at the School of Visual Arts. kaNO currently resides in Los Angeles with his family, where he freelances as a character designer for Warner Bros, Cartoon Network, and Hasbro. When he’s not creating cartoons, he can be found working on paintings, commissions, and product designs at his art studio in Burbank.
Huntz Liu劉懷漢
Liu is a Taiwanese American artist who works primarily with cut and layered paper. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he grew up, crafting pieces that serve as a study on shape and color. With a straight edge and knife, Liu’s geometric/abstract compositions are often found at the intersection of literal depth and perceived depth. He received his BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and has been featured in several solo exhibitions, including 2021 Strata at the Thinkspace Gallery and 2020 Negative Space for Giant Robot in L.A.
Chinese American Museum: 425 N. Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
www.camla.org
