Five Cents a Can: Making Visible the Invisible
This project raises questions about migration, inequality, and aging while poor and Asian. I started painting the canners after I encountered, for months, the same elderly Chinese lady going through garbage in the back of my apartment building every Saturday morning. When we became friends, Choi Yi told me she is 93 years old, has four children and many grand-children, and she used to cut threads in garment factories until they all closed in Chinatown. She lives in the public housing near me. Her spirit and pride in what she has accomplished, and her everyday resilience in picking up cans and bottles, inspired me to question whether one should be aging with such hard work for bare survival.
These paintings and installations play with what is real versus the distorted perceptions of our own realities. While many people are striving for the comforts of a nicely furnished home and getaway vacations, most canners toil just to survive. What people don’t know is that many canners in the area were once garment factory workers who earned a regular income. But their work slowly moved abroad and they lost their jobs. Their reality reminds us that working people are only numbers on a profit and loss spreadsheet that knows no humanity - people’s work can suddenly vanish and their livelihood gone.
(Note: Installations are collaborated creations with artist Alvin Tsang.)
*Supported by Asian Women Giving Circle and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
**More paintings will be added to this ongoing project.
Canners on Allen Street, 2017, oil on canvas, 48H x 36W x 1.5D (Sold)
Hunched Canner, 2017, oil on canvas, 40H x 30W x 1.5D (Sold)
Sorting Cans, 2017, oil on canvas, 30H x 24W x 1.25D (Sold)
Outsider, 2020, oil on canvas, 40H x 30W x 1.5D
Familiar Stranger, 2020, oil on canvas, 20H x 16W x .67D
Missed Connection, 2020, oil on canvas, 30H x 40W X 1.5D (Sold)
Canner on Train, 2019, oil on canvas, 40H x 30W x 1.5D
The Angel, 2019, oil on canvas, 72H x 40W x 1.5D
Night Canner, 2019, oil on canvas, 72H x 48W x 1.5D
Resting After a Long Night, 2018, oil on canvas, 24H x 24W x 1.5D (Sold)
Canner with Scarf, 2017, oil on canvas, 24H x 20W x 1D
Gold Mountain, 2019, gold painted cans in trash bags, cart from canner
Gold Mountain, 2019 (details)
Value, 2019, nickel on satin clothe in antique gold frame
Value, 2019 (details)
Street of Gold, 2019, gold painted cans, boots, worker glovers, bags, cardboard, cart, video tablet
Street of Gold, 2019 (details)