In Grade 12, for the first time I picked up a painting brush. No one but myself witnessed the miraculous moment of unleashing a primal urge to express and to create. Like music, art exists when life is not enough. It is a line around thoughts; a source of solace and consolation. It is an endless river: flowing, passing, yet remaining.
For a brief period of time, I responded to my home culture with total rejection and denial. Ashamed, I refused to speak or write in Chinese, or to be branded with any cultural stereotypes. I sought universal expressions that transcended language, culture and the branding of identities. I wrote two string quartets, and when I realised that I needed the skills to explain to myself what otherwise could have not been explained, I decided to go to university for fine arts.
My decision spread in my family as a shock - which "utterly shattered" my mother's high hopes. My mother, of her aggressive and manipulative nature, threatened me with suicidal attempts. To her, artists must all be struggling to prove their values that were hardly beyond "nothing".
Battling against her wills and prejudices, I again found my real self wander elsewhere: I had ceased to live, yet I continued to exist for someone else, something else. After years of striving to find and retrieve my "self", I finally came to realisation that one's self was not to be found; it was to be created.
Where am I going?
For a brief period of time, I responded to my home culture with total rejection and denial. Ashamed, I refused to speak or write in Chinese, or to be branded with any cultural stereotypes. I sought universal expressions that transcended language, culture and the branding of identities. I wrote two string quartets, and when I realised that I needed the skills to explain to myself what otherwise could have not been explained, I decided to go to university for fine arts.
My decision spread in my family as a shock - which "utterly shattered" my mother's high hopes. My mother, of her aggressive and manipulative nature, threatened me with suicidal attempts. To her, artists must all be struggling to prove their values that were hardly beyond "nothing".
Battling against her wills and prejudices, I again found my real self wander elsewhere: I had ceased to live, yet I continued to exist for someone else, something else. After years of striving to find and retrieve my "self", I finally came to realisation that one's self was not to be found; it was to be created.
Where am I going?
