Ann Suzuki

Sometimes, words just aren’t enough.

 

It’s difficult to explain in words my experience living in Singapore and America despite being Japanese. It’s hard to talk to someone about how my three selves often don’t fuse together to form a complete me. There are some words and thoughts that I can say in one culture that is deemed inappropriate or unnatural in another, and while I know that I am fortunate enough to have had such an eye-opening cultural experience, I’ve felt trapped in my own inner thoughts.

 

Words alone were never enough, so I looked to different types and combinations of mediums to communicate. I incorporated a mixture of ceramics, photography, and recyclables into my artwork. In “Resonanting Earth”, “Objectify”, “Pearl”, “Outpour”, “Dangling Participle”, “Isolation”, and “Self-Portrait”, I wanted to portray confusion and darkness by playing around with the delicate interaction between human and space. Yet, I also wanted to depict the beauty within the darkness - the moments of happiness I felt within my cultural experience - and thus used imagery such as light and organic figures. In artworks such as “Fetal Presence” and “Techno Life”, I used a physical light to juxtapose the light and dark parts of my past experiences.

 

Besides communicating my own story, I wanted to be able to use my artwork to communicate other people’s stories. I went to animation and web and graphic design for a more universal storytelling platform. I experimented with typography, photography, and Adobe software to tell the story of my father’s friend Sanae Lash, of Baltimore, of fear and loneliness.

I know that communication is key, but I also know that words aren’t the only way to communicate. My artwork depicts my story as well as others’, and captures both the pain and happiness that exist in every story.