Altar (detail) | 2022

Linocut on fabric

5" x 7"

This linocut is based off a black and white film photograph by my grandfather, that I had discovered in an old family album. Despite being the first one in his family to embrace "the West" -- from setting up a home darkroom, to studying ophthalmic surgery techniques and introducing them to China -- it was fascinating to me how quintessentially Chinese the image was, harkening back to traditional landscape paintings in both composition and content. As I spent my days wandering through the Finnish countryside and making linocuts of what I saw, I kept thinking about the relationship between a landscape and its people, and the scale of time and physical presence that is necessary for a sense of belonging.