A digital archive of Asian/Asian American contemporary art history

City Awaken

72x192 inches (h x w x d)
2002
oil on canvas

Homage to the World Trade Center.

"Actually, I started this painting before the World Trade Center attacks happened. I had been working on this one for almost a year, and I was never satisfied with it, so I put it away. Then a few months later I brought it back and added more, and then the World Trade Center attacks happened. All this light, a parade of candle lights; I thought each light is a human spirit. The fishes are a symbol of human life. I've been using fish symbols for a long time; it's like the spirit of a human. The fishes are rising, screaming, and ascending. All the boxes are like our reality, we are surrounded by boxes all the time."--from artist's interview "Artist Brings Serenity to SB", the Stony Brook Statesman, September 15, 2005.

City Awaken
Source: Slide