My practice is motivated by the desire to expand languages of painterly and scultptural abstraction by examining its global histories. The works I make are often modular and respond creatively to their architectural settings.

While often working with diverse painting substrates, I am interested in referencing objects and materials specific to my Chinese heritage. For example, the form of the folding screen is cited as both a spatial tool and transcultural motif in various installation works. The earliest instances of folding screens existed in the Han dynasty in ancient China, later iterated throughout Asia and Europe as an ornamental and artistic object. While I often reinstate the screen’s historical function as a barrier, divider or structural device, this cultural referencing coexists with diverse application of materials and mediums.

For my residency at PICA, the ability to reposition my practice geographically – from the east to the west coast of Australia – establishes a unique framework to investigate new ideas surrounding site-specificity within my practice.

The context of Perth’s location (being geographically closer to Asia [Indonesia, 3,000km] than to Sydney [3,300km]) is a compelling and creative way to think about my work in relation to the site of PICA. The colonial heritage building with its history as an educational institution (now a forward-thinking arts organisation), acts as an engaging site to explore junctions between painting narratives of East and West.