Remedy

Parson Challenge 

In my personal statement, I said that ‘art has become my greatest ally, allowing me to question the world, without necessarily awaiting clear answers, but rather relishing the search for them through its process’. This line became the motto for my Parsons challenge project. In my portfolio, I included a set of works called Botanical Characters that transform natural shapes into human-like flower individuals with their own personalities. While sketching them, I realised that flowers can become powerful vehicles of meaning, which led me to a new project entitled Remedy—a journey of self-understanding and a form of therapy.

Remedy is a large-scale oil painting in which I depict myself gazing into a mirror. The mirror reflects not the present me, but rather a childhood version, and thus becomes an imaginary portal to the past and a reminder of who I was back then. I was born in Hong Kong, and growing up there came with challenges—family expectations and societal pressure had a profound impact on me. Moving to a boarding school in a different country marked an important change in my life. The values I was raised with were confronted and sometimes challenged by my new surroundings. At times, I started forgetting my past life, and Remedy was meant as a visual and symbolic cure for this predicament.