We store thoughts, dreams and desires in the vessel of the body and the mind. We depend on the earth and all its creatures for survival. These things are universal.

I appropriate historic images, in this case Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic Mona Lisa, layering transparent oil glazes and employing a variety of scales to explore the way history can impact the present. I am interested in the way art can bring together short and private moments of intimacy in the present with a universal consciousness of eternity.  

In my self-portrait, I draw inspiration from artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and David Hockney, merging my own features as a Chinese-Australian woman with the mysterious smile of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. In both sculpture and painting I seek to create new forms through drawing on the value of deep cultural histories and combining these references with key contemporary events.

Through this series of works I bring together the past and the present; the influences of the East and the West; the personal and the universal through the vessel of my own body.    

Massive Lisa and her massive baby, 2021  

oil on linen  

2550 x 2015 x 1 mm

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Asleep Mona Lisa, 2021  

oil on canvas  

1100 x 1000 x 40 mm

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