About the Artist
-
Ethnic Origins
Southeast Asian
-
Languages
English
-
My Disciplines
Digital Arts, Interdisciplinary Arts, Media Arts, Multidisciplinary, Visual Arts
-
Artist Statement
I’m Al (also known as Ali), an interdisciplinary artist and illustrator. Through my artwork, I chronicle anxieties and challenges related to my experience as the child of immigrants and a first-generation Filipino (Tagalog) Canadian. Cultural expectations, smiling depression, and issues of identity, loneliness, and belonging plague the subjects of my artwork: human forms that evoke the drama of Baroque paintings and the familiarity of comic books at the same time. I think of my artwork as storytelling and draw on a variety of visual narrative traditions from my childhood, including cinema, comics, manga, and Western religious artwork. The purpose of my artwork is to connect and unite us through the shared hardships — big or small — that otherwise isolate us.