Artist Statement
Stories permeate my work; some stories are true, some are not. I share them to build connections that follow a maternal line, instead of those that have been force-fed by patriarchally influenced, mainstream history. My work connects to the past, and I reflect upon a diaspora that is disappearing from collective memory. Despite this, the Dutch Indonesian Diaspora persistently retraces itself through maternal lines that have been erased by the process of colonialism. Descended from this colonization, I recontextualize colonial portraiture to challenge historic narratives that have been passed down by both colonizer and colonized.
The history I imagine isn’t one in which documentation reassures cultural memory. Instead, fantasy, women’s postures, faces, and half sentences too embarrassing to be uttered aloud populate the archives from which I create my work. My history painting transforms shame into vulnerability as I grapple with memories on the brink of erasure. Archival and vintage photographs, from both found and personal sources, are layered with natural and textile patterns. They allude to a dream-like internal space tinged with earthen hues.
In my work, patterns, and landscapes indicative of the past envelop a variety of portraits. They allude to a dream-like, internal space and conjure a connection to the past. Collaged, painted, woven, and printed layers intermingle, obscuring and revealing recurring elements that suggest history, migration, and transformation. The figures in my paintings emerge out of disjunctive spaces, reflecting an awakening to new ideas. My works on paper embody disruption and lack of control, the shifting realities of foreground, figure, and background depicting a sense of dislocation while paving a path towards healing.
My work functions as Herstory, appropriating, othering, and objectifying to reclaim something lost. These tools of subversion salvage dignity for myself and women like me. But this work is twofold; while documenting the past it also reaches into the future, creating a new story, rematriating (a term Indigenous women of Turtle Island use) and restoring balance to my culture, both intellectually and spiritually.