Long Hair

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I have been working with long hair imagery since 2002. " Twin Spirits" is my very first hair themed drawing series. They are self-portraits of me and my twin sister. We both have had long hair since high school, and it has become our main identifying feature. I use disembodied image of long, straight and black hair as a reference to our identity. These ceiling to floor sized drawings are presented as traditional Chinese scrolls to accentuate the length and the flow of long hair. The monumental scale also creates an imposing three-dimensional effect.  

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The triptych " Three Graces" presents symbolic portraits of the three Zhang sisters. The long braid drawing " Life Strands" is a shift from personal to more universal. It represents a woman's life cycle from the untangled youth, through the turn of midlife, to the thin grey hair at the end of life.  The general idea of Mother and Daughter's relationship also expressed in drawing " Bond".

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After graduating from UC Davis, I moved to Lawrence KS in 2004. Since then, I have enjoyed living in my adopted home and fell in love with the rolling hills and the open space.  My works started taking on a more dynamic flow, integrating my long hair with reginal environments such as the iconic tornado, wheatfield, Kansas prairie and the tallgrass. In 2022, I was selected as one of the 19 artists to create two large Kansas nature inspired drawings for the new KCI airport. 

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Water element and Chinese dragon character are also included in my current work.