My Portfolio
25 Things About Me
This mixed media project is inspired by the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. EEAAO is my favorite movie of all time, and I love how it uses the metaphors of bagels and googly eyes to talk about how to approach life. As a result, I decided to use different circles with positive and negative space to show irises and pupils. Each circle and part of the piece means something different to me, and can be easily interpreted by anyone else as well. Plus, I kept the pieces separate instead of glued down because it allows for the piece to be interactive and free, paying homage to the idea of being free and the philosophy of absurdism in EEAAO.
Chinese American Dream
This artwork was the first that I made in the 2025 - 2026 school year for my AP Drawing portfolio. It depicts 3 versions of me throwing one baseball with a blue and red background. This was made out of just acrylic paint, and it's my first ever time using acrylic paint for something more serious. I tried using elements of art such as contrast, negative space, and value.
The big idea behind this artwork is that I have internal conflict within me about whether my identity is more Chinese or American, but that my hopes and dreams are always the same either way for my past, present, and future. I took a long time thinking about what could symbolize my hopes and dreams, and I eventually decided on a plum blossom and a baseball. I thought that a plum blossom would be great for expressing the Chinese side along with the red because it symbolizes perseverance and prosperity in Chinese culture, but I also chose it because it's a plant and China is a part of my "roots." I chose throwing a baseball for expressing my American side because those dreams have a less tangible connection to me, and I thought that the baseball was a prominent symbol of American culture. The more abstract strokes of pastel colors surrounding the baseball are meant to symbolize the more naive/childish side to my dreams.
The painting looks unfinished because of my technical limitations surrounding acrylic painting (mixing skin tones/colors in general, blending smoothly, and getting the values of the same color right), so instead of leaving some parts of the painting blotchy and messed up, I ended up covering up some parts with the color of the background to make my mistakes look intentional. This is very tragic, but it's just a way of putting my painting on "hold" for now so that I can get this statement done with a more presentable painting. It's coincidental yet unironic that a painting about my hopes and dreams is unfinished and forever changing, especially the part of the painting that's literally me.
I also want to fully paint the plum blossoms and baseball in upon further reflection. The original, intended effect was supposed to make the plum blossoms and baseball covered by a bit of fog and faded into the background (because it's not clear to me exactly what my dreams are). However, I think I'm going to change that and get rid of the foggy/faded effect because my painting only ended up looking unfinished.
For some overall thoughts, I really like the meaning and intention that I put into this piece. It took me a bit to put my reference photo together, and I like the composition that I came up with. However, I think the execution of this painting can use a lot of work, so I want to continue to work on this painting in between other projects so that it can reach its full potential.
I will update my portfolio when I make the changes that were suggested to me during our class critique + the ones that I'm intending to make after self reflection. But I'll consider this painting "finished" for now.
Snowy Day
This is an acrylic painting of my sister and I on a snowy day in New York when we first moved to the United States. I was around 4 when this happened, and I tried to use elements such as negative space because it's a recurring theme throughout my portfolio. There's some soft pastel that I had to use towards the end because I ran out of yellow paint to mix the right colors, which ended up making some elements of the painting fuzzy compared to the rest. This painting is largely inspired by the idea of America's snow representing a huge part of what was new about America to my family. Since we came from an area in China that had a much hotter climate, we never experienced snow. I tried to show my happiness in my pose amidst a more muted background. The muted background was supposed to juxtapose the brightness of my sister and I's coats because although snow in New York is very common and not that exciting, it was still very exciting for us. In terms of what I think about this piece after creating it, I think that there's more that I can do with the detail that I'm putting into the piece. I chose to make the faces blank because there's supposed to be a theme of confusion surrounding my identity, and that shows through the lack of faces in my pieces. However, I do want to practice getting better at faces and making that work so that the rest of my portfolio can include faces.
Ice, Fracture, and Instability
This is a soft/chalk pastel piece from a plane ride to China from the United States. It was originally meant to show a plane wing over a night sky with a cityscape below, but the result looks a lot more icy and cool compared to the original reference picture. I decided to title this piece "Ice, Fracture, and Instability" because it's not really clear where you are when you are on a plane ride. The blues are meant to represent water, distance, and passage, with the Pacific Ocean as the literal divide between the US and China. I think the black plane wing in the corner can resemble a mountain to climb when looked at from upside down, or it could also resemble the shadow of something left behind. The lack of shore that I incorporate represents how I haven't fully "arrived" in the US or China at this time of my life. Finally, I tried to make some blues more washed out and diluted with the chalk pastels to symbolize the dilution of culture and tradition as time passes. In terms of what I think about this piece, I think there needs to be a lot more detail in how everything looks. I chose to use chalk pastels, but they didn't allow me to get the level of detail that I wanted for the night sky. If I had chosen another medium, I could've made some more detailed clouds or used a wider variety of colors. Right now, you can't really tell that the piece is supposed to take place at night, so I would use a medium next time that allows me to mix some darker colors that match my reference picture.
Journal Gallery
Thumbnail Sketches
Practice
Brainstorming