Joy Li
2017-2018
Chameleon
Year: 2017
Medium: mixed media, latex, threads and spray painting
Size: variable
For this project, the professor asked each of the 20 students to give an idea, and then every student needed to create a work including those 20 ideas. We are being forced to accept everyone’s ideas, which is like the situation of our lives. We always live under others’ ideas and experiences. Living under the rules makes people feel limited but also feels relaxed and comfortable at the same time. This condition made me think about the BDSM. When people are restricted and bound physically, they feel they are being protected and relaxed mentally. So I made this latex suit with a chameleon-shaped hood because chameleons can change their skin color to the environment. I also designed 20 icons for those ideas and spray painted them on the suit since graffiti is a kind of “art” that everyone can do.
Changeable
Year: 2017
Medium: mixed media, fabric, toys, and thread
Size: variable
This is a piece I collaborated with Doyee Kim. Those body parts are moveable and can stick on the suit by the hook&loop fastener.
Can we cross cultures? Are there forms of contemporary culture or historical material that are inappropriate to reference in our own work? There are some “rights” that look like they are given by some philosophical features that we are born with. You have penis so you can do something and talk about something. Conversely, having vagina also gives you some specific “rights.” As an Asian, it might look weird for the viewer if I address some issue about other cultures and races. Do these problems result from the outer appearance or inside us? Can we deal with these issues by changing our appearance? Will we look diverse or only ridiculous? Sometimes we just have questions and no answers.
Tears
Year: 2017
Medium: mixed media, paper, and glasses
Size: 15*67cm
This is a project based on the poem "To A Child Dancing in The Wind" by Yeats.
To A Child Dancing In The Wind --W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
I
DANCE there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
DANCE there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
The monstrous crying of wind?
II
Has no one said those daring
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn’d?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
I could have warned you, but you are young,
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
I could have warned you, but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.
O you will take whatever’s offered
And dream that all the world’s a friend,
And dream that all the world’s a friend,
Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.
Chinese traditional painting is more focused on the shape of the object instead of the volume, so people's face always look flat. When the Chinese emperor of the Qing dynasty first saw the Western oil paintings, he was unhappy and said: "There shouldn't be shadows on children's faces." The face without shadow can be a metaphor for the children's innocence. We grow up with crying, and those tears became the shadow on our face.
A Show of Flower Arrangement
Year: 2018
Medium: mixed media
Giving
Year: 2017
Medium: mixed media, milk, paper, and towels
Size: variable
In this performance piece, I am wearing a wet robe soaked in milk beforehand and wringing it out. Through this piece, I discuss the relationship between making art, artists and the society. I also want to express that for me, doing art is a giving out process and being an artist means that we have responsibilities to influence society to get better.
