WMC News & Features

Asian Art Museum Features Bold New Works By Women Artists

Wmc features I was I am I will be Chanel Miller Asian Art Museum090820
Chanel Miller's “I was, I am, I will be” is a work of “hope and tenderness.” (photo ©Asian Art Museum)

When Chanel Miller was growing up in Palo Alto, California, she would walk to her grandmother’s house after school, go to a small closet stocked with art supplies, and sit down at the dining room table and draw. She remembers the feeling of peace and absorption doing that. Her mother would display Miller’s and her sister’s art — not just on the refrigerator secured with a magnet, but professionally framed and hung on the walls.

“It was elegantly displayed,” Miller said. “That gave it legitimacy and honored what we were feeling.”

Her mother also used to take them to San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, where Miller’s 75-foot mural, I was, I am, I will be, is now visible from the street in the newly created Wilbur Gallery, part of the museum’s $90 million expansion.

Miller wrote the best-selling book Know My Name, in which she revealed she was Emily Doe whose statement in her 2017 Stanford assault trial went viral, bringing attention to the stunningly lenient six-month sentence for the man who raped her.

Miller, who moved to New York City from California right before the shelter in place order, says making art is healing, and whenever she had a difficult day in college, she would go home and draw.

“When I write, everything is so deliberate, and every word is carefully selected and the syntax and grammar is so meticulous and arduous,” she said. “With drawing, I trust my line, and I love being able to give myself permission to sit back and let whatever happens happen. The only reason I was able to write about hard topics is because I can fall back on drawing. It just makes everything lighter and more bearable.”

Writing Know My Name, Miller read the court transcripts, and she says immersing herself in the painful memories of the trial made her feel as though she were regressing. Now that the writing is over, she’s glad she did it.

“I said everything I wanted to say, and it didn’t consume me, and I was able to return to the present,” she said. “We continue our lives and try and face forward, and leave anything behind that aches, but going backward is what allowed me to go forward. We’re always cycling between phases, and it’s not linear.”

That is what Miller tried to convey in her piece, which shows a figure starting out curled up in a ball crying green tears, then sitting cross-legged on the floor, and then walking off, head up.

The piece shows hope and tenderness, says Abby Chen, the head of contemporary art at the museum. Chen knew Miller’s animation and her writing, and when she met with her, she was impressed with how she conceptualized the work.

“She was very collaborative from the beginning, and she’s clearly comfortable doing free hand drawing,” Chen said. “She has great talent in drawing lively characters.”

Miller toured the gallery while it was still under construction, wearing a hard hat. Chen told her she had the freedom to fill the space with her mind.

“I was given almost a block’s worth of white wall, and that’s incredible,” Miller said. “I thought about how the images would be seen from the street, and it was divided into three panels, and my comic brain ignited, and I thought, ‘I’m going to treat this as a narrative.’”

Along with I was, I am, I will be, the museum commissioned two other works by women visible from outside the building. Jas Charanjiva’s Don’t Mess With Me, a bright-pink work with a woman in traditional Indian bridal dress and brass knuckles reading “Boom,” which she made in response to the fatal 2012 gang-rape of a woman in Delhi, will be on the roof, and Jenifer K. Wofford’s bright Pattern Recognition will be installed on an outside wall.

For this wall, Chen was adamant about having a Bay Area artist. She loved the energy in Wofford’s work and the inclusion of other Asian American Bay Area artists, such as Carlos Villa, Ruth Asawa, and Jade Snow Wong, in speech bubbles.

Wmc features jenifer k wofford pattern recognition asian art museum 090820
Jenifer K. Wofford with her work “Pattern Recognition“ (photo ©Asian Art Museum)

Wofford says she wanted to use a fun, pop art style to synthesize work inside the museum as well as from neighborhoods nearby the museum, with references to images from the Yakan in the Philippines and Hmong communities in southeast Asian countries. She included the names to honor artists who often haven’t gotten recognition, she says.

“I liked the simplicity of using speech bubbles,” she said. “When people see Carlos Villa with an exclamation point, hopefully it will get them curious, and they’ll look Carlos up. He was my mentor, and I’m very invested in making sure his legacy is honored.”

Wofford is glad her artwork will be part of people’s everyday lives as they pass by the museum, near City Hall and the main library.

“I love that it will be accessible to anyone regardless if they paid or not,” Wofford said. “It’s nice to see it’s going to reach a broad array of folks in the neighborhood.”

Chen says Jay Xu, the director of the Asian Art Museum, talks about turning the museum inside out — and that’s part of what she wants to do with these works.

“It gives people a sense of ownership of the city and the museum,” she said. “It also gives a glimpse of what the museum is.”

Having grown up in the area, Miller says it means a lot to her to have her work exhibited in San Francisco. Miller’s mother was born in China, and she’s glad her first commissioned artwork is at the Asian Art Museum.

“Since I spent the last few years shrouded in anonymity, it’s wonderful to have this expansion and visibility,” she said. “When I was young, like a lot of people, I was obsessed with assimilating, and now that I’m older, I have a growing pride in my parents and origins, and I want to present it to the world.”



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