by Kay Curry
Northwest Asia Weekly
“Recognition: Pratyabhijna”, Suchitra Mattai (Courtesy of Suchitra Mattai and Wing Luke Museum)
In difficult times, art can be a healing tool for individuals and society as a whole. The Wing Luke Museum’s upcoming exhibition “Repositioning: Journeys in Art and Healing” unites four renowned artists with in-depth experience in the art of power to help tackle life’s challenges. Guest curator Lele Barnett brings together these artists and their work with her passion for immigrant and diaspora stories, especially in Asian communities.
“I’m a firm believer that the act of creating art is healing, and all these artists have been doing in their lives,” Barnett said. Artist Barnett chooses to approach their art with a spirit of experimentation and exploration, often using unusual materials and methods, which sets their work apart and allows them to overcome the personalities that come with the story of their relocation from their home country and collective pain, and “reorientation” to a new country and culture.
For example, Suchitra Mattai talks about “healing the pain of her ancestors” by weaving sarees together in her work, Barnett explained.
“Art heals both in making and in viewing. It creates space for empathy and understanding,” said Mattai, who battles bipolarism. “The process of creating art has provided me with an effective, emotional, and unparalleled path to healing. I think many people who suffer from mental illness also feel ashamed. Sharing our experiences makes us aware of how common these disorders are , and hopefully reduce the stigma associated with them.”
Ma Tai found potentially multiple meanings in the show title: Is “repositioning” a search for a new direction? Is it about the largely abolished term “East” or “East”? Both.
“To me, the title references the historic Western ‘Orientalism,’ the lens that was once used to look at the ‘East,’ and asks us as a society to reflect and re-imagine how we see Asians and Asian-Americans the way of man.”
“Global Power” by Jean Nagai (Courtesy of the Jean Nagai and Wing Luke Museum)
As Barnett prepares for the show, each artist takes their place when she realizes their connection. Jean Nagai spends a lot of time on social injustice and mental health issues. Barnett recalled seeing Nagai speaking on a panel when he lived in Los Angeles.
“At the time, he was bottling the smoke from the exhaust pipe … and painting with it.”
Smoke, Pumice, and Nagai use unconventional materials to illustrate serious issues such as “the trauma of being part-time migrant workers, or the overwhelming power of corporations and their manipulation of our government to destroy our sense of self, time, and energy.”
Nagai found the title of the show very exciting. His contributions address the process of “reorientation” that immigrants experience.
“We try to learn a language, learn a job, a game, or clothing, etc… We adapt to connect or disguise ourselves.” Nagai has worked in a number of immigrant jobs, such as fishing in Alaska or trimming weeds in California. He considers his paintings in the exhibition “a tribute to the true ‘global forces’ of this planet, the workers who are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.”
“Crystal Rainbow” by Victor Kai Wang (courtesy of the artist and Wing Luke Museum)
Barnett first came up with the idea of ”retargeting” a few years ago. COVID-19 and other considerations hinder this. She worries that one of the artists she wants to follow, Victor Kai Wang, 88, might not see the fruits of their labor. Mr. Wang, who does not often show his works to the public, has a very modest attitude towards the exhibition.
“He didn’t want to be famous. He just wanted his work to be seen and experienced,” Barnett shared. Mr. Wang personally experienced the Cultural Revolution. In the 1980s, due to the trauma caused by his wife’s labor camp in China, he brought his family to Seattle and ended up raising his two sons alone.
“Victor had to ‘reposition’ the West with his eastern roots, blending culture and art forms in a way that made sense to him,” explains Wang’s son Will Wang Graylin. “Through decades of experimentation and everyday life in America, he was able to express himself in new and innovative ways through his art, which influenced those around him.” Like Nagai and Mattai, Wang has been experimenting with his art , and the key link between art and therapy.
“Art has been his life since he was a child, and his love for it was never-ending. It gave him so many meanings that no one else could understand,” Grayling said. During difficult times, whether in China or the United States, Wang turned to his art in a constant search for beauty. He was never opposed to the use of unusual materials, as demonstrated in the exhibition, such as the art he created on rice bags during the Cultural Revolution; or, after working on photo corrections, he began to “mark colors” on photographic paper painting.
As Barnett recalls, Wang and Tuan Nguyen, the fourth artist in Reorientation, were “trying out unique materials and finding joy there, taking pain and reversing it in this act of creation.”
“My recent ‘Pain Body’ work in the exhibition is a material manifestation of society’s intergenerational trauma,” explains Nguyen. “For me, making works is the first step towards forgiveness, healing and love.”
As a child of the Vietnam War, Nguyen also experienced “social violence, racism, trans and homophobia, misogyny, war, etc. that are affecting us all in America right now” and considers his artistic practice his Toolbox to do it all – “A toolbox that matters… I’ve been drawn to art since I was a kid because it’s my way of getting into the bigger world, dreaming and imagining a better world. It’s also a way for me and for not A way for things that belong to an existing category to open up space.”
Barnett is pleased to present some of these works for the first time. “Seattle needs to see it.”
“Redirected” is on view at the George Tsutakawa Art Gallery in Wing Luke from June 10 to May 14, 2023.
Kay can reach info@nwasianweekly.com.
