With Love! (2020)
A Sunday Supper Club event via Refusing Refusal, a multi-media show in Baltimore, MD
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Family Style (2020)
A Sunday Supper Club event hosted by Waller Gallery in Baltimore, MD
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Taproot (2019)
TAPROOT synthesizes two polarized experiences of being both
brown and Asian in a country that historically neglects racial nuance.
Suspended between their parents’ culture and US mainstream culture, the two artists embody distinct perspectives: one of assimilation and one of frequent migration between continents.
TAPROOT argues that what is manmade is natural: through the lens of various natural systems, Catherine and Samiha [Alam] discuss transplantation, consumption, and geographical boundedness.
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Capillary Bowl (2019)
Detail view - TAPROOT
White oak, ready-made objects, atmospheric moisture, imported Jasmine tea
Capillary Bowl, a reference to the fantastical perpetual motion machine, cold brews Jasmine tea. Over time, water is taken out of the air and siphoned through a series of distillation techniques.
The brewed tea that collects below becomes a record of what has transpired in the room the machine occupies.
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Next Door (2019)
Detail view - TAPROOT
Friendly’s Fried Chicken, oriented strand board, found objects
Friendly’s Fried Chicken, oriented strand board, found objects
In 12 whole wings with salt-pepper-hot sauce, I consume Baltimore as the gallery audience consumes me.
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Scout’s Honor (2018)
Installation view
“On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight."
When my parents immigrated to the United States in the 1980’s, they followed a wave of others just like them: young, hopeful, hailing from one of the numerous Asian countries that, in the past century, had felt the military influence of the place they sought refuge. With them, they brought values and mythos filtered through the reality warp of language barriers and cultural clashes.
Voices unravel a knitting, a salute unfurls paper towels and the smell of frying meat wafts to the tune of the National Anthem. Scout’s Honor leans on quiet but telling symbols:
1) SPAM
2) phytoremediation
3) The Kissinger Report
It shuffles familial fables into the deck of a pockmarked national history.
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Will You Be Home For Dinner? (2018)
Originally exhibited as part of Scout’s HonorShown below in an alternate installation
Displayed on opposite sides of a wall, the viewer finds that speaking into the phone unravels a knitting.
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Scout’s Honor (2018)
Detail view
Ash wood, enamel pin, sunflower microgreens
Ash wood, enamel pin, sunflower microgreens
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SPAM (2017)
Installation view
Cast porcelain, laser engraved plexiglass
Cast porcelain, laser engraved plexiglass
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Normalcy Machine 01 (2017)
OSB, found objects, Rocky Mountain High by John Denver
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