Hung, Sui Ying

A digital archive of Asian/Asian American contemporary art history

Other Names: Ying S.; Ying; Suiying; Sui-Ying

Female

"Hello….. and goodbye!/
Isn't he wonderful!/ W_who……?/
Bang!/Bang!/Bang!/
It's a miracle!/
Oh……..help!/Is it war?/
You'll never live to prove it!/
We're safe! Thank the lord!/

This is not a story.
In my paintings, not only I borrow popular cross-culture characters from comic books, but also adopt its fragmental and ambiguous way of execution. Fragments, scenes and frames have been reassembled to generate a new level of meaning.

As a Chinese immigrant, self exploring and identifying in the realm of east and west are always my motivation of creation. Conceptualized incarnations and signs emerged from my very own self consciousness are used to examine multi-culture's whereabouts and limitations in this over-materialized and over institutionalized society.

Patterns and grids lay the foundation for my works. Repetition of images such as insects, low life animals, icon, metaphorical objects and numbers, have been surrealistically juxtaposed or overlaid to symbolize the intensity of survival and existence of people from the third world.

The repetition equals humor and, together with lines, segments of color and different surface textures, serve to emphasize and enrich the power of meaning.

I use oil paint as my primary medium. Different thickness of paint, bubble gum colors, graphic impact and deliberate spaces have been created to evoke a sense of complexity and contrast---intimidating yet playful, decorative yet chaotic and vulgar, yet mysterious, reflecting conflicts in human mind, and will ultimately address the issue of civilization and its discontent."

Sui Ying Hung, Artist Statement, [2002]