I wanted to continue exploring the theme of yellow in race relations. After spending the previous day in a serotonin-drenched mood, it is only appropriate that today I experience quite the opposite. I spent the morning in bed in a feverish dazed which inspired a painting.

Some of my favorite things are puns and plays on words. I once painted a self-portrait of my face floating in the clouds with rubber ducks and titled it “Duck Face.” Since I was feverish and my theme was yellow, why not paint “Yellow Fever!”

Yellow Fever is a name of a viral disease and also a term used in the American vernacular to describe Asian Fetish–particularly a type of sexual obsession with Asian women. Curious enough, the term itself is a pun of the disease as if the name suggests that the fetishization of Asian women itself is a disease. As an ode to puns, I painted a self-portrait of myself (an Asian woman) suffering from a fever with a thermometer in my mouth and titled it “Yellow Fever.”

My Palette

Yellow Fever | 2018

Acrylic on Paper | 11×14

After spending time reflecting on why the color “Yellow” is such an important theme to me and examining on my work throughout this project, I realize that this is part of my effort to reclaim the color yellow and reexamine my own relationship with my race and identity. I want my work to spark an ongoing conversation about Asian American representation in America and reclaim the narrative.

“Serotonin or 5-hydroxytryptamine is a monoamine neurotransmitter, and is popularly thought to be a contributor to feelings of well-being and happiness.”

According to some studies, the color yellow induces serotonin and I thought it was a breath of fresh air compared to my focus on its racial association.

I was inspired to continue using Processing to create art. Today, I wanted to explore how to recreate this unique neurotransmitter’s structure. I used the base code of the fractal tree from processing.org and manipulated the formulas to try to generate a similar anatomy to that of the serotonin structure and got varying results below.

The Structure of Serotonin

credit: moleculestore.com

Processing Results

I want to turn this Processing sketch into a geometric print titled “Happiness.”

I took inspiration from the coding exercise yesterday and wanted to explore more about the themes of the color yellow. Recently, I saw “Crazy Rich Asian” and it was Hollywood’s first movie in 25 years with an all Asian cast. Director Jon M. Chu released a heartfelt letter he wrote to the band, Coldplay, to ask for permission to use their song, “Yellow” in the upcoming film. It was a beautiful song that represented ways in which Asian Americans can reclaim this racial slur.

Even before the release of “Crazy Rich Asians,” it was one of my favorite songs. I always felt as if the song in many ways, celebrated my identity and my skin color.

I was inspired to challenge myself to use Arduino to create a row of lights that will light up to the beat of the song. I needed to get Arduino and Processing to communicate the beats of the song and translate it into input for my LEDs. Unfortunately, because I am very new to coding, I couldn’t get my code to work after working after trying for a few hours.

 

Attempt:

Eventually, I want to use this prototype to create an installation of LEDs light in a dark room with mirrors lighting up to the beat of the song. It is meant to mimic the feeling of eternity and continuity inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s “Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity.” However, I will wait until I have enough technical skills to realize this feat.

Inspiration: 

Source: Photo by Shirley Leung

Description: Yayoi Kusama’s “Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity” at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

 

After spending a few hours painting yesterday, I was inspired by the brush marks, texture, and process in which I painted. I wanted to explore different ways of representing the painting through patterns, repetition and the idea of distortion.

I spent some time watching The Coding Train on YouTube to figure out how I can manipulate the pixels in my painting to produce varying results of the same painting.

This is my base code:

 

I manipulated the pixel size of the ellipse( ) command to change the clarity and texture of the image and got the following results.

Circle pixels of varying size:

Oval and rectangle pixels:

“Yellow Peril” is a xenophobic, racist color-metaphor that refers to the existence of Asians in Western territory and culture.

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the color yellow.

When I was around 5 years old, I use to carry a yellow rubber ducky with me everywhere. It was my favorite color and my favorite toy. One day I dropped my rubber ducky in the subway tracks and that was the end of my ducky.

Growing up in America, I constantly struggled between the intersection of being Asian and being American and found myself living on the verge of never fitting in. As I got older, I began to reject my love for the color yellow as I saw the increasing want to need to fit in and saw myself drifting towards the conventional “female” or “male” colors–blue and pink. My favorite color switched back and forth throughout the years before I eventually found myself naturally gravitating towards yellow again.

In the wake of the recent rise in Asian representation and media, I found myself exploring my relationship with yellow. For my “5 in 5” project, I decided to constrain myself to something I once loved–the color yellow.

For my first project, I found myself exploring the idea of the self-portrait through inanimate objects. I did a still life study of some of my favorite objects.

Self Portrait | 2018

Gouache on Paper | 11×14