When looking through a polished glass jar, I see an incredibly distorted world. What I learnt over the years is that our personal experience influences how we perceive this world. We each carry a unique glass jar filled with our emotion or lack thereof, through which the path of light is bent, refracted and distorted. Growing up as a skinny Asian gay man, I feel constantly abandoned, marginalized, and unattractive due to my sexual preference, race and body type, which ultimately takes a toll on my psychology. My glass jar is filled with disappointment and frustration, through which the world appears to be a misshapen place. I feel compulsory to create this body of work because my vulnerability does not permit me to publicly voice my feeling and speak my wound.
Inspired by both Salvador Dali’s painting the Elephant, I carefully aligned my camera, the glass jar, and my subject so that the limbs and fingers appear to be bizarrely elongated. The model is a good friend of mine with whom I have good synergy, and through whom I can open up my heart and express my visions.
