A Place to Rest
Home has meant a lot of different things in my family — shelter, yes, but also something that could be taken away by a phone call, a court order, a decision made by someone who'd never met us.
This installation comes out of that. A fire that started with a candle and a kid's toy, and the years of public housing that followed it. A cousin who did what was expected of him and stayed home, and what that cost him. My mother's passport, reimagined. A neighbor in Chinatown’s Ping Yuen who spent the '70s fighting so families could live somewhere safe. And at the center, an altar for a friend of mine — someone who built a kind of home for everyone around her just by showing up.
Home Altar [Ode to Monica]
Mixed media assemblage, 56” x 67” x 21.5”, 2024
This piece draws on my Japanese and Filipino roots, and the Buddhist and Catholic traditions in my family, to capture some of the cultural mix I grew up with in the Bay Area.
At the center of it is a tribute to my friend Monica Hastings Smith — someone I think of as having real magic in her, for everything she's given to drumline composition, performance, teaching, and her community.
Ode to Monica
Mixed media assemblage, 15” x 24” x 4”
This assemblage is my attempt to hold onto what Monica Hastings Smith meant to the people around her — the way she showed up, for causes, for people, for her community. The different materials in the piece are meant to echo that: the many layers of how she shaped the people and places she touched, and what she left behind.
HOME - 家
Mixed media monoprint, 18" x 24", 2024
This piece goes back to something that happened to my family in San Francisco's Western Addition in the late 1960s. My eldest brother, just five at the time, was in his room when a toy rolled under his bed. He lit a candle to find it, and the flame caught. My mother was home and put it out before it spread. But because we'd been left alone while she was at work, CPS got involved — she was ordered to quit her job, and the family was put on public assistance and moved into public housing.
I think about that image a lot — how thin the walls of a working-class family's life can be, and how much gets decided for you in moments like that one. My brother later became a firefighter. I've always thought of that as its own kind of quiet ending to the story.
The print starts with a base of acrylic in hot neon colors — it felt right for both the fire itself and the strange, heightened way memory holds onto things. Over that I screen-printed a crying little boy standing in front of the flat, a kid caught in the middle of something much bigger than him.
Court Ordered [Weekends in the Excelsior]
Mixed media monoprint, 18” x 24”, 2024
Twilight fills the sky in soft pink, and three yellow stars stand in for the dreams we had as kids. At the center, two siblings pose together in San Francisco's Excelsior District. But behind them, typed in blue ink, is a court order — the official seal of the Superior Court of San Francisco — a reminder of how much was happening above our heads while we were just kids trying to be kids.
Whispers of Departure
Mixed media monoprint, 18" x 24", 2024
This one is about my cousin Akihiko, the eldest of three. By tradition, the eldest son stays and takes care of his parents, and he did — he stayed. But sadly, his life was cut short.
Black screen-printing against neon acrylic — city on one side, countryside on the other, bleeding into each other. He's stepping out of a tunnel, back into an earlier version of himself.
I made this thinking about home, about duty, and about the life he might have had if things had gone differently.
Permanent Resident
Mixed media monoprint, 24” x 18”, 2024
Reimagining an old Japanese passport, replacing the traditional photograph with a powerful depiction of a young woman carrying a symbolic samurai sword. Set against a backdrop of teal blue and sepia, the composition symbolizes the resilience and hope of Japanese immigrants during the late 1950s. Teal represents the journey toward a new beginning, while sepia adds historical depth, evoking nostalgia and connecting the artwork to the challenges faced by individuals in that era.
The Chronicles of Home
Diptych, Acrylic on birch panels, 12” x 48” x 1.75” each, 2024
This two-panel work explores the fragility and resilience of home.
Left Panel: Resilience reflects a childhood memory of a house fire sparked by innocence and misadventure, set against the haunting image of a burned-out Victorian flat.
Right Panel: Empowering Heights honors Mrs. Lee, a Chinatown housing activist who fought for safety and dignity in public housing during the 1970s. A reimagined portrait of her with a bullhorn stands as a symbol of community strength.
Dripping circles across both panels echo the passage of time and the echoes of memory.