Image: "Looking Back" by Mal Pina
Chan.
Mal Pina Chan is a local artist who focuses on
her Chinese-American identity, and who brings up issues of immigration
and race in her work.
Her art is a personal journey, but it is also meant to reflect
broader issues that face our culture.
My current work is a series of monoprints that represent a
journey through childhood memories pieced together from family
stories. They recall fragmented events and far away places. I
have found a rich source of imagery in old family photographs
and documents.
These monoprints denote memories that convey thoughts about
lives superimposed upon each other, of multiple
generations,
the notion of "paper sons", the dichotomy of going back and forth
between two continents and two cultures, the immigrant
experience,
and the struggle to belong.
These images also represent the constant redefinition of self
in the changing environment, our resistance to change, the conquering
of change, and the re-emergence we experience.
My hope is that my images will reach out to people, telling
a story about the immigrant experience that transcends
racial and cultural boundaries speaking to a universal perspective about
family.
-Mal Pina Chan
Mal Pina Chan can be contacted
by email: chanm@evergreen.edu.
