Rokokomo (2009) is a digital triptych examining alienation, isolation, voyeurism, secrecy, as well as the petty and vain side of human nature.
Artist’s Statement:
This project was initiated by an assignment for a self-portrait. I was initially Inspired by the Rococo period, specifically how the rich liked to create their own ideal image and imagine themselves in idyllic bucolic or glorified contexts. (sound familiar today?) How can something so vain be also so sensitively layered and crafted and beautiful and imaginative in its form?
The first image expresses the luminous bucolic style where I establish the idealized version of myself in a context I was familiar with in my childhood, always quiet, hidden, and apart. The second image expresses my adolescence, still apart but surveying the social dynamic of young people my age to get a grasp of where and how to fit in. The third image expresses my young adulthood, the arrogance and grandiosity fostered by continual disconnection to self and others, a toxic way of learning self-esteem.
It is only today in 2023 that I can understand and admit that this project was a way of processing my own past personal insecurities and wounds. It is also a testament to how often beauty and masking are used to cover up deep emotional pain albeit in a grandiose manner. I was trying to turn my suffering into beauty, and while interesting and beautiful to look at, it lacks humility which was something life taught me in the past 7 years.
I always imagined these photos being printed on translucent film 60” wide, lightboxed, guilt framed, and floating at eye level or rear projected onto a smooth cloth fabric in a gallery where people can really appreciate the detail & imperfections.
Artist’s Process:
This project was completed in around 24-36 hours. I took over 400 photos of 3 college friends who have never met each other, styling them from their personal wardrobe in ways I thought could be pastel-y, feminine, or extravagant like the period clothing. I then directed these women how to pose by giving them scenarios within context to emulate. Afterwards, I spent around 10 hours learning basic photoshop commands through youtube tutorials (never touched it before) and in one night before the assignment was due, cobbled together this surrealist fantasy.
Original Renderings & Portrait/Body Studies demonstrating illustrative command of various mediums (Acrylic Paint, Oil Pastel, Charcoal, Graphite, Prismacolor pencils, Watercolors, Grease Pencil, Etc.)
Set Model & Costume Renderings by Jaymee Ngernwichit for the Benjamin Britten Opera of Henry James' novel, Turn of the Screw.
A proof of concept scenic model for Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus - a monologue play the play that follows three characters over the course of a single night in Dublin: a former schoolteacher (A), her lonely, estranged daughter (B), and a serial killer who has sold his soul to the Devil (C).
Because monologue plays can feel lengthy and verbose to some audience members who have trouble focusing on speaking language I tried to think of other ways to engage the audiences’ senses and enhance the form of this play.
I was greatly inspired by the moat or underground/ tunnel bass concerts in the UK. My initial thought was that we needed to amplify and underscore the voices as if they reverberate and surround you in the space. Maybe sometimes they can be patched through sound as whispers or moans that come from the back and sides of the audience to disorient them and add elements of unease. The walls will help bounce the sound and underscoring under the risers of the seats which aren’t pictured here (downstage grated metal bleachers that are suspended over the water so the audience can see they’re floating with the breaks on the floor). I would hope the tight space and high walls would allow vibrations of low sound to be directed towards the audience. I also wanted to capture the feeling of the play (cold bleak horror) with the wet stones and ground, and darkness.
Other elements incorporated:
Islands of detritus inhabited by the actors shaped like a fragmented Ireland
The blinding all watching “eye of god” that tracks from upstage to above the audience - also inspired by bass concerts
Fragmented Train Tracks
Other inspirations: Train terminals & detritus, Solaris and Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, Goya’s drawings.
Mr. Price, or Tropical Madness by 1930s absurdist Polish playwright, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, is a drama of heightened passion and greed among British colonists in Rangoon who seem to have stepped out of Joseph Conrad's tales of the South Seas. It is a turgid tale of hegemonic orientalism & imperialism, swealtering humidity, heat, incest, passion, duel personas, madness, the question of sanity & selfhood, & last but not least, Resurrection.
Set Design by Jaymee Ngernwichit
Advanced Scenic Design - Paper Project Designed for the Shank Theatre at University of California, San Diego
Artistic process: Cornell box -> Rendering -> Completion
Final Cut Pro + Premiere + After Effects
main projector footage
Ephemerial Explosions of wily shapes, colors, & textures.
Who doesn’t love flowers? Maybe allergy sensitive folks. Though, we certainly can appreciate photos.
