Immigration

Iris Z.

Gouache, ink pen, acrylic paint, construction paper, watercolor paper, Chinese calligraphy paper

• Artist Statement

  I created this piece to tell my grandma’s story of immigrating from China to America and to contrast her life with that of her brother, who remained in China. It is also a memorial to him, who loved painting landscapes and tigers. At the top, I painted a traditional Chinese landscape, with tigers crawling across the mountains and rooftops to symbolize both China and her brother. The buildings in the middle represent the homes where my grandma and her brother lived in China. At the bottom, an aerial view of an American suburban neighborhood shows my grandma looking up in hope. To contrast the traditional style of the Chinese scenes, I depicted the American houses in a more abstract, contemporary, scrapbook-like way, reflecting the diversity, unpredictability, and new possibilities she encountered in America.

• Creative Statement

  Creativity means to me a connection of ideas formulated from one's gathered experiences. The feeling of inspiration, the yearning to make something original