{BUTTERFLY AND FLOWER 1}
Oil on acrylic, on gallery canvas
48" x 72"
{BUTTERFLY AND FLOWER 2}
Oil on acrylic, on gallery canvas
Two panels: 72" x 96"
Diptych (each panel 72" x 48")
{BUTTERFLY AND FLOWER 3}
Oil on acrylic, on gallery canvas
Three panels: 48" x 144"
Triptych (each 48" x 48")
In the patriarchal society that I experienced, women were traditionally encouraged to occupy a passive role as a “flower” – subject to man’s domination. Men, on the other hand, assumed the active role – as a “butterfly”, flitting from conquest to conquest and from flower to flower for fertilization and their source of honey..
Since coming to North America in 1986, I chose to abandon my passive role as a flower and to become more assertive. Instead of submitting to feelings of frustration and victimization as an immigrant, I elected to try my wings and soar to new horizons. And later, through emerging as an artist in the 1990s, I was able to enlist my art as a potent voice to communicate and share with the viewer – not merely on my own behalf but on behalf of all women who seek to rise above their passivity as a flower.
In a metaphoric way, the context of my paintings relies on the female body, or segments of the body, to support the flower and butterfly theme.
