Growing up Asian-American I encountered a lot of racially motivated jokes and micro-aggressions. I often heard the joke, "What do Asians use as a blindfold?" For some reason, it was always okay to make fun of the Asian students in class. I didn't go to a diverse school growing up, I always got the mimicked action of students pulling their eyes back or telling me jokes that were targeted at Asians. Identifying as a half-white and half-Taiwanese American, sent me into a mindset that made me have a complicated relationship with my own eyes. I wished to make a piece that would showcase a certain uncomfortable feeling that felt similar to how I felt growing up. It is a portrait of myself holding a piece of floss to my "eyes", the eyes do not exist because of the irony that the floss is supposedly able to cover my eyes. There are charcoal-drawn hands because I never let it define me so my hands were never actually painted in to demonstrate that. I wish for people to see this piece and understand not just my narrative and childhood but the lives of many Asian Americans.
