I have been working on a new collection, as my school project. I've been waiting for starting a new collection - to draw more on my photographs. Since I've been so prolific in my photoshoots, I had so many to choose and to tell the stories of the subjects. The feedback I received from last quarter in school was to try out new mediums to enhance the quality of illustration. Thus I incorporated color pencils, and added more layers on top to create depth. It's still a challenge for me to carve out time to make artwork along with doing photoshoots because it's a new try. But I always think about creating a tangible artwork that has depth, dimensions, and texture... Hopefully someday it will be hung on many people's walls.
I got inspired from a Japanese Painter Tadashi Asoma, an Abstract Expressionist and Japanese immigrant to America in 1960s. I mean my works do not look like anything like his (laugh), but I really loved his color palette and the mountains he draw behind the scenes. The mountains of Japan, New York, or wherever that is, that really echoed with me and wanted to incorporate those oriental lines. But my main inspiration was my subjects, as I tried to remember the time I had with my people during the shoot, or any memories that I have with them. It was like having another photoshoot with them, but like alone, and it was more reflective and memorable. The photoshoot was more of a connecting point, and the mixed media photography is more of my own aesthetic, quality time that I have.
