FROM HERE

In From Here, my largest marquetry tapestry to date, I merged a depiction of the 18th-century silk tapestry Five Phoenixes in a Rock Garden with images of the aftermath of the Wang Fuk Court fire in Tai Po, Hong Kong, a tragedy that claimed 168 lives. Living in the United States, I was unable to physically participate in the acts of mourning taking place in Hong Kong, including the laying of flowers at the site of the tragedy. Through the labor-intensive process of double-bevel marquetry, I found a way to enact my own gesture of remembrance, “leaving flowers” in wood from afar. Plumes of smoke and flower petals are sand-shaded by scorching the edges of the veneer, creating natural gradients and depth. Through marquetry, I bring images from different moments in time into a shared space, allowing the past and present to coexist, overlap, and become layered within a single image.