Formerly a diasporic artist, Tina was interested in educating themselves about their family’s Taoist spiritual practice of ancestral veneration. The concept has intrigued since childhood. Often fantasizing an afterlife, a separate world where the passed could exist. The idea influenced their dreams. Nodding away to a world shrouded in darkness, awakened in cold pools and greeted by an audience of trees, it was understood as meeting grounds for ancestors. Years passed before this dream would recur and contort after the departure of a sister. Whenever brought back to that place currently, they would be granted a warning through the disintegration of their body.
Tina’s work is the physical manifestation of that unearthly dreamland. Relying on the instinct of hand, drawing each mark allows them to sink into meditative thought. They work with these violent narratives to reach catharsis. Like Sequoia trees that need fire to propagate, they are inheriting the ash to cultivate a new ecosystem.
The decisions of war and the greed of imperialism have taken culture, language, and direct connection to their bloodline. They will continue to work with these fragments of personal history and will not shy away from the uncertainties of their family’s heritage. They have settled: healing intergenerational trauma should not rely on a singular person or generation.
Relief never remains for long. Tina is constantly haunted by what is lost, what is left to be lost, and what we may never know.