Chenxi Gao
University of North Texas
Screen print on BFK paper, colored pencil on tracing paper, transparency overlay
9” by 6”
$100 SOLD
My recent works meditate on my relationship with my family and hometown through the lenses of memories. What do I remember, why do I keep thinking about them, and how are they affecting my behavior today? I look at my experiences critically and pay special attention to the changes that happened and are happening over time.
I use origamis as metaphors, both the final products and the process of making them. Naturally, it connects to childhood and playing: I learned to make them from my mother as a child. I like to fold paper to keep my fingers busy while thinking. I am interested in their structure of them. Parts of the paper are hidden in the folds, like how I hid my past experiences. When I moved from my hometown Laiwu, a small town in the north of China, to the mega-city Nanjing in the south at seven, I tried my best to appear like my classmates. No more hand-made clothing, homemade furniture, and my northern accent. The memories are both preserved and hidden from everyone outside of my family.
Moreover, the origamis fold and unfold, and so do memories when they get stored or recalled. Similarly, my attitudes toward my hometown, family, and memories fold, unfold, and sometimes flip over as I ponder upon them. I long to reunite with my hometown, but it has changed dramatically. I held on to the child-like dependence on my mother, but I have grown up. The relationship is changing.
My pieces visualize my thinking process and help me to untangle my thoughts. When I make the prints, I spend time with the images from my memory and make new connections. I have some rough plans for the pieces in the beginning. However, more often they “unfold” naturally into what they are. For example, In What to Keep, the plastic sheet and the piece of paper with dates were unplanned. The idea came to me when I realized that the portrait of my mother got very abstracted after states of translating: from the photo to the drawing on the paper crane, and to the screen-printed image. Even if I laminate the photograph to protect it, the memory fades. Do I keep the photograph, the memory, or the relationship recorded in this photo?
After all, my current works are personal, but may or may not be relatable to the general audience. I translate my experience into visual representations through the material, imageries, and processes. They function as the starting point of conversation: with myself or others. Eventually, I want to be healed from being forced to hide by revealing the hidden parts.