Swell
SWELL
Swell is an exploration of the boundaries and edges that define my life living on Vancouver Island in the west coast archipelago of Canada. Born in Vancouver, which the Chinese diaspora historically called Saltwater City (Haam Sui Fow), my identity is tethered to the ocean and its edges, floating between worlds of East and West. Swell is situated in the liminal space of perpetual becoming, alluding to both the Romanticist landscape traditions such as Caspar David Friedrich’s Monk by the Seashore and minimalist Chinese scroll painting where the vast negative space represents the great unknown.
Swell is rise and fall
Swell is ebb and flow
Swell is the tide
Swell is salty
Swell is stink
Swell is bracing cold
Swell is storm
Swell is calm
Swell is mood
Swell is a lonely cocoon
Swell is the distance between us
Swell is place
Swell is here
Swell is what surrounds us
Swell is sunset to the west
Swell is moonrise in the east
Swell is creeping north
Swell is swell