Selina Yung
Statement
All kids get cuts and scrapes but what about more serious wounds? Wounding often happens when parents are neglectful, authoritative, overprotective or even narcissistic. Our early experiences shape our belief about ourselves and the world.
Maintaining a balanced relationship with a family who has created a sort of trauma within Selina is one of the most difficult, yet courageous things she has done. “Metamorphosis - Grow through what you go through” marked an important milestone of Selina’s journey to learn, accept and grow out of her past and upbringing.
She believes that even though one’s parents might not be perfect, they probably still did their best to protect and love their child the way they thought that was “right” and the most “appropriate” (symbolized by the placement of the snake cutouts, guarding the infant). When you are on the receiving end of this kind of love, it can feel suffocating, and can cause a long lasting impact on you (symbolized with the umbilical cord wrapping around the baby).
However, it does not define who you are. You can choose to grow out of it, bloom and be fruitful (symbolized with the fruits and blooming flowers in this collage). The resiliency within us wants us to heal. Similar to a cut of our skin, which always has a scab growing over it to aid its healing. Expressing ourselves through our own creativity aids self healing and that is what Selina does. “I hope my ‘broken pieces’ can somehow help you heal too” she says.
Bio
Selina Yung is a Chinese born, self-taught artist with a non-visible disability. She specializes in hand-cut analog collages, which encourage viewers to experience collages in a modern way. She acquired proficient cutting skills, and her artistic expertise lies in choosing, arranging, and affixing cutout images to create movement in, through and out of composition. Although digitally cutting and pasting items can achieve a similar goal, a piece that is hand cut, with images sourced from second-hand organic materials with a finite amount of content, add uniqueness to Selina’s creative process.
Selina knew what she loved at a very early age, but the reality is that not everyone has the freedom of choice to do what they love, especially in her family. After spending 10 years in financial industries, carrying hopes and dreams of her lineage, her heart still holds a passion in art. "If we all deserve a second chance to choose, why shouldn’t we give these discarded images a second life? And that is how I fell in love with collages" she says.
There is a misconception that collages are an acquired taste and the artwork is always messy. Similar to mental illness, there is a stigma that people with non-visible disabilities are “broken”. “Collage can be so much more than that and people with disabilities can bring so much more to this world”. Her goal not only is to make old new again, but also to inspire the others to explore their “second life”.
Artist Website: cleverclippings.com
WEBSITE NAVIGATION GUIDE
Bottom right of every webpage is an Accessibility Widget that can alter the webpages as needed.
Top right of every webpage is the Menu button.
All links are highlighted in the colours purple, green, and peach.
Images in the Annual Juried Show and Event Series pages are also links.
All other images can be clicked/tapped to get a closer look in image view. Clicking or tapping again will zoom into the image.
Click/tap outside the image to exit the image view.
Back to workmanarts.com