I was one of fifty American artists invited by Topic magazine to make new work for the Federal Project No. 2- Re-examining America which asked artists to look back at projects created during the New Deal, and make work that reflects the United States. I selected Yasuo Kuniyoshi for inspiration and created 6 new portraits for a series called “The Daily News.”

I selected Yasuo Kuniyoshi as my inspiration for Federal Project No. 2, creating paintings that feature female Asian American, gender nonbinary, and transgender artists responding to both our current political state and Kuniyoshi’s 1935 painting, Daily News.

Kuniyoshi was an immigrant from Japan who, despite not fully being considered “American”—he was barred from becoming a citizen for nearly his entire life—participated in the WPA’s Federal Art Project. Kuniyoshi was uneasy about the rise of militarization in Japan, and in Daily News, he portrayed his feelings toward the state of the world through a white female model. I was drawn to how he captured her mood of melancholy and despair, as she sets down the paper, contemplatively smoking a cigarette.

On the morning of September 26, 2018, I asked six Asian American artists to photograph themselves in response to the biggest news of the day: the Senate hearings for the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had accused of sexual assault when they were both teenagers. The Kavanaugh hearing and Ford’s testimony magnified the #MeToo movement by throwing a spotlight on rape culture in America, as well as on the Trump administration’s endorsement of white patriarchy.

For many Asian Americans, it’s hard to separate our response to this hearing from the rage we feel about Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. The mask of white nationalism has been unveiled and is taking up so much space in our lives. Like so many others, we’ve been exhausted by the gaslighting and the political circus.

When the hearing was over and Senate prepared to vote, the activists Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher cornered Senator Jeff Flake while he was in a congressional elevator, on his way to cast his vote in favor of Kavanaugh, and told him about their own experiences with sexual assault. In this moment, I realized I wanted to create paintings that captured Archila and Gallagher’s raw emotions of empathy, sadness, rage, disgust, revenge, and resolve. Watching them, I found myself asking, “Who is and isn’t allowed to express anger, and what range of emotions can we publicly display?” I wanted to capture this flashpoint before it dissolved back into apathy, as the next wave of breaking news crashed around us.

In these paintings, I explore the power and mobilizing the potential of anger for Asian American womxn to create solidarity, by portraying images of those who are usually silenced and invisible. My paintings, based on the photographs made in response to the Kavanaugh hearing, feature artists Aram Han Sifuentes, Genevieve Erin O’Brien, Maya Mackrandilal, Seiji Nakano, Jaishri Abichandani, and Anida Yoeu Ali. As O’Brien said in response to their portrait, “I feel that it’s important to show the vulnerable crumbly parts of ourselves and knowing the strong parts of ourselves are in the background.”

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