Artist Statement
Jessica Steadman
In my work, I approach my feelings towards things that remind me of my ethnicity. Being biracial is something I’ve always dealt with personally, and is something that has brought both positivity and negativity to my life. Each of my concentration pieces features a black and white portrait of myself or my parents, juxtaposed with something that I associate strongly with one side of my family or the other. Sometimes the objects are things that I was made fun of for, or things that people fetishize about asian culture. And yet, sometimes they’re things that make me happy, and they are the things I love most about each side of my family.
Something I associate really strongly with asian culture is yakult, which are little yogurt drinks that are really common in Korea. I grew up drinking them and never really saw them outside of korean households until recently, when people started to treat them as a novelty, calling them cute and turning them into a fad. One of the pieces in my concentration is me smiling, and three little yakult drinks floating around my head to illustrate how it was both confusing and amusing to see people in America acting so eccentrically about something so normal in Korean culture.
The objects are surrounded by layered, vivid rings of color. I chose the colorful and layered look for the rings to make it seem as if the person and objects were floating in a sea of color, making it seem less attached to the everyday world and everyday life. My feelings towards these things are very abstract and I wanted the background to emphasize that. They’re also not typical stereotypes for white/asian culture, another concept I wanted to highlight. They’re seemingly random things that are stuck, floating around in my head constantly, and to me they define cultures and identity. So by having them in the picture but abstracted slightly, I can convey the complex emotions and relationship that I have with my ethnicity.
Jessica Steadman
In my work, I approach my feelings towards things that remind me of my ethnicity. Being biracial is something I’ve always dealt with personally, and is something that has brought both positivity and negativity to my life. Each of my concentration pieces features a black and white portrait of myself or my parents, juxtaposed with something that I associate strongly with one side of my family or the other. Sometimes the objects are things that I was made fun of for, or things that people fetishize about asian culture. And yet, sometimes they’re things that make me happy, and they are the things I love most about each side of my family.
Something I associate really strongly with asian culture is yakult, which are little yogurt drinks that are really common in Korea. I grew up drinking them and never really saw them outside of korean households until recently, when people started to treat them as a novelty, calling them cute and turning them into a fad. One of the pieces in my concentration is me smiling, and three little yakult drinks floating around my head to illustrate how it was both confusing and amusing to see people in America acting so eccentrically about something so normal in Korean culture.
The objects are surrounded by layered, vivid rings of color. I chose the colorful and layered look for the rings to make it seem as if the person and objects were floating in a sea of color, making it seem less attached to the everyday world and everyday life. My feelings towards these things are very abstract and I wanted the background to emphasize that. They’re also not typical stereotypes for white/asian culture, another concept I wanted to highlight. They’re seemingly random things that are stuck, floating around in my head constantly, and to me they define cultures and identity. So by having them in the picture but abstracted slightly, I can convey the complex emotions and relationship that I have with my ethnicity.