Rachel Hsu, ""Fetch the Moon from the Seabed (海底撈月) (to wish, to miss, to think, to believe)"

Artist Statement

My mother has lived away from her homeland for thirty years and I now live two thousand eight hundred miles away from mine. Why do we yearn for a place we know is not the same as in our imagination? From the blue of retreating horizons to the illusory, deep blue of the ocean, the color is emblematic of the permanently unattainable; of distance and desire. Inspired by absence and slippages in translation, my work engages the yearning that emerges from distance and displacement. Loss and longing are intertwined, and to fully experience both requires time and endurance. Whether it is the labor demanded by language-learning and cultural assimilation or the pain that healing necessitates, my work urges mental exertion and emotional endurance to be felt in one’s body. I ask viewers to submerge into longing; to acknowledge desire as a sensation worth cherishing rather than an obstruction to overcome.

Artist Bio

Rachel Hsu (b. 1992, Seattle, WA) is a Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist. She received her BFA from Western Washington University and is a co-founder of the online arts platform, Open Window. [https://www.art-openwindow.com/]

Drawer 3- "Fetch the Moon from the Seabed (海底撈月) (to wish, to miss, to think, to believe)", inkjet print, 14x20 in., 2021, $300;