“I bought a sake cup at a second-hand store. I was intrigued by the glass marle-like thing that sat at its bottom. I poured some water in the cup when I got home. Somehow through the refraction of the marble and the liquid, a tiny image of a naked Asian woman appeared at the bottom of the tiny cup. She was masturbating and she looked just like one of my mom’s sisters.
A few years later, I used this sake cup as part of a mixed-media piece about booty. Not as in “shake your booty” or “bootie-call,” but as in plunder and spoils – spoils of colonial projects, spoils of vacation packages. Through the tea I poured in the tiny cup, the tiny naked woman appeared within the artwork as part of the booty. Unexpectedly, during the second week of the one-month exhibition, she began to fade. After the third week, when I came to refill the tea, she was completely gone. Who was she? Where did she go?
I became obsessed with her disappearance. I have looked for her in nudie playing cards, online auctions, mail-order brides and porn websites. In another second-hand store I found a 1894 ten-volume set of books titled Historic Characters and Famous Events. I know I will find her in here.”
Artist Bio
Gaye Chan
Gaye Chan was born in Hong Kong. She immigrated to Hawaii as a young girl and explores the hybrid nature of cultural experiences as the conceptual core of her work. Her career spans over twenty years, including solo exhibitions in Hawaii, New York, Reno, San Fransisco, Idaho, Portland and Japan, and she has received awards from the NEA and the Rockefeller Foundation. She earned a BFA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and an MFA from the San Fransisco Art Institute. Chan also is an Associate Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and has curated numerous exhibitions.