Los Angeles, CA
Biography:
I grew up in Middletown NY in a bicultural home with a Chinese mother from Hong Kong and a Jewish father from New York. After studying fine arts and Chinese at Oberlin College, I moved to Brooklyn and worked for three years as an assistant painter and screen printer for a street art collective called Faile. I currently live in LA.
In my artwork, l aim to create a world that is playful and fantastical, bringing the mystical creatures and magical landscapes from my dreams and childhood into real life. Alter-egoism is the vehicle through which I enact a dream state in reality; I turn myself inside out, exposing my inner spirit to the outside world. The self-portraits featured here are of my latest alter-ego, Harvey Hamburger, whom I birthed last year in New Mexico.
Harvey is a male cross dresser who intrigues and troubles me because he is so mysterious. As I delve deeper into this project, I realize more and more how intangible the boundaries are between creator and creation: although I decided to create this male character, I know nothing about him. I dictate facets of his reality — he is the lead singer of the band Harvey and the Hamburgers; he is an active member of Facebook and Match.com, shyly preferring online communication to face-to-face interaction — but his essence eludes me.
My project brings childlike, playful role-playing into “real life” — into our mundane and everyday reality — rather than relegating it to an altered or immature state of consciousness.
Website: www.facebook.com/harveyhamburger
