Blind Spot - Who am I?
2014 - ongoing | Fine art archival print | 30 X 20 inches (76.2 X 50.8 cm) | Edition of 3 + 2 AP

The ongoing portraits installations in Blind Spot series explore the relationship between personal and familial identity. Such relationships are especially relevant in Asian culture, where there is often an emphasis on the responsibilities of individuals towards the family unit. In this way, the family becomes like a palimpsest; an image that is forever embedded in individuals' faces. The family is like a thumbnail of our personal history and emotional loyalties.

The sitters were asked to slowly rubbed a white paint over their face, similar to the traditional Butoh performers and those of Bruce Nauman's Art Make Up film (1967/1968). The action had a strong performance element. The whitening process is akin to erasing his own identity, creating an empty canvas, before I projected faces of his immediate family members onto the face, forming a new identity.

The resulting portraitures from this process subtly suggest one's drowning on our own identity, overwhelmed by our family members.