Dear TCK

Medium: Acrylic on found painting

What this means is that I started all the pieces in this series using canvases that already had paintings or drawings on them. I found these canvases as they were about to be thrown out, even though they were in perfect or near-perfect conditions. I had no control over what’s already on these canvases before receiving them. And what I then painted (to a degree of my choosing) depended on what was done by the previous artist. I had to decide how much the original painting, or the previous artist, was going to influence the new painting I made. Through this process of using found painting as a medium, I often asked myself, “How important is the history of my painting?” “How important is My history, my roots, my family?”  

TCK stands for Third Culture Kid. It is the term used for children brought up in a different country from the rest of their family. These are usually children of expatriates who have moved around from place to place; ultimately finding the need to create their own culture.

Having access to different cultures that equally influence our lives and cultural identity is the result of everything coexisting at once. We end up collaging our culture with the things that work for us. This is a collage of everything we value, identify with and are influenced by.

My paintings are a visual representation of how I have collaged the various cultures I am exposed to.