Face-Off

From the Artist

As an Asian American woman, I work from the margins of America, mapping a family geography of immigration, assimilation, and internment. My work is, to a great extent, about appearance and what might or might not reside behind it. I was born in Chicago and grew up Japanese American in an otherwise Caucasian suburb. I grew up feeling like I was like everyone else inside, but with a face that made me different. Oddly enough, this difference made me invisible. My inner life was masked by my Asian face—no individuality, no identity other than the associations clustering around the shape of my eyes, the color of my hair, and skin. 

It is the process of formation of what was/is behind my face that my work explores. Through the manipulation of imagery and color, I hope to reveal some of what goes on behind the changing face of America. 

In the print Face-Off, I have taken my face and made it into a mask of color. Each of the nine faces shows a tonal variation that in life would connect the face with an ethnic group and all the associations attached. In the print, the tones are simply layers of ink on a piece of paper, just as skin is a layer of tissue on other tissue. How can this superficial layer have acquired such importance and meaning, such profound and often tragic social and historical consequences? Red people, black people, brown people, yellow people, white people—find a person who is actually red, brown, yellow, black, or white—most are shades of pink and brown. Yet, the flagrant inaccuracy of these classifications can in no way mitigate or lessen past and present pain and suffering caused by the hierarchical imposition of social structures based upon them. So, we must continue to remind everyone that what is under the skin, under the ink is something different, individual, yet always the same—a human being—a face behind which reside a life lived, living, and to be lived. And however it is lived, a life that should not be limited, oppressed, or [in] any way altered due to the hue of its most superficial component.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

These are self-portraits, those are images of myself in the print. I use self-portraiture often as a basis for my work. Through manipulating images of myself, I’m able to both investigate and make statements concerning how this self is developed and defined both individually and culturally. Growing up as an Asian American in the Midwest, I learned at an early age that my parents attracted attention and that I was different, and my work often involves this feeling of difference and everything that stems from it. I was making a statement about the presentation and perception of my face…the physical layer of my identity, so by changing colors overlaying design and adding markings to these images of myself, I was presenting multiple versions of myself by presenting these multiple versions of my face.
_{—Adapted from interviews conducted by Drexel University students, supervised by Jen Katz-Buonincontro, PhD, 2021–2022}