eirikswood

Queer Inclusive Pop Culture, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Art

[eirikswood]

Old Seoul, New Canton 老韩新汉 (Queens Blvd Blues)

Two of the busiest epicenters of our parents' diasporas are in Queens (Main Street Flushing and Jackson Heights / Roosevelt Avenue). On monthly trips in a minivan from Connecticut, we would criss-cross crowded intersections of folks from everywhere, argue over dim sum or banchan for lunch, and codeswitch continually between Han Ah Reum and Hong Kong Supermarket ("괜찮아? 有冇搞錯呀?") on the hunt for any salve to an immigrant's homesickness - groceries, haircuts, home media, and housewares we would not find back in the suburbs.

[eirikswood]

𰻞𰻞麵男 / Biangbiang Mian Man

One of the most complicatedly-written Chinese characters is the onomatopoetic "biáng-biáng," always paired with itself (with 24 variations) to represent the rhythmic sound of Xi'an hand-pulled noodles as they are stretched and bounced rapidly on the counter for optimal gluten development.

[eirikswood]

교포귀신굿 / Gyopo Gwisin Gut

(a sendoff for Koreans who perish abroad)

Gyopo Gwisin Gut, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

Manifest Diaspora (Hao Da West Was Huang)

From Morro Bay (1587) to Bayou St. Malo (1763), from Astoria (1811) to the California Gold Rush (1848) to Promontory Summit (1869) and Iosepa (1889), the history of Asian and Pacific peoples in North America begins with stolen and exploited laborers in its most physical, dangerous, impermanent, unreliable, and undignified industries (ports, mines, lumberyards, fisheries, farms, factories, shops, and railroads) moving west to east with no clear paths to citizenship, ownership, agency, family, or prosperity, a perpetual foreigner in diametric opposition to the myth of manifest destiny.

[eirikswood]

A Mudang Must Rest / 무당 신병

Male relatives of the village shaman are considered spiritually mundane but may still assist a mudang with her rituals through the stewardship of ceremonial objects, providing musical accompaniment, or painting deities and cooking food for the shrine.

(In adolescence I was sometimes our grandmother's scullion and her forgotten unwritten recipes can still be exhumed from sense memory plus trial and error)

A Mudang Must Rest, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

Wheel of Joy (피보나치 삼태극 / Fibonacci Samtaegeuk)

Based on minjung woodblock prints of the pungmul (farmers' dance) including O Yoon's No Sowing in the Spring, No Harvesting in the Fall (1985) and Kim Bong-jun's Resolution Unification (1985). This version uses a triskelion fibonacci sequence known as 삼태극 samtaegeuk (or དགའ་འཁྱིལ། gankyil), which appears on several of our grandmother's belongings. It is also the foundation of how I paint (自学오방색) - mixing each color daily from three primaries, a light, and a dark which represent five elements, cardinal winds, heavenly beasts, etc.

[eirikswood]

Chun Pongjun the Mung Bean General / 전봉준 녹두장군

Portrait of the peasant revolutionary Jeon Bong-jun (1855-1895) in the styles of Park Saengkwang (1904-1985) and O Yoon (1946-1986). In defiance of the military government dictatorships of South Korea's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Republics (1960-1988), minjung artists invoked the same folk heroes and minhwa themes of a century ago to rally the working class common people against injustice, exploitation, and state oppression (see also Gobu Revolt 고부 민란 1894, Gwangju Uprising 광주 민주화 운동 1980).

Chun Pongjun the Mung Bean General, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

육이오 전쟁 / How Will We Carry On?

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 and remains unresolved after 75 years. This work is a love letter to the fallen soldier, comfort woman, camptown girl, war bride, war child, and the forced adoptee.

How Will We Carry On?, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

Once There Was a Kingdom of Tigers

As a national symbol of Korean authority, strength, and protection, the tiger was subject to both reverence and ridicule in folk art depictions, often outwitted by humble magpies and common rabbits.  Extinct throughout the peninsula for over a century, the tiger remains a nostalgic cultural image, frequently depicted as an allegory for reunification and self-governance.

[eirikswood]

Not Another Opioid Epidemic

Trade wars and opium addiction caused the collapse of Imperial China (221 BCE - 1912) and is how Hong Kong became a crown colony and dependent territory of the British Empire for six generations (1841-1997).

Not Another Opioid Epidemic, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

Yankee Doljanchi / 양키 돌잔치

Dol (baby's first birthday) was an important milestone for our grandparents' generation, a time when only half of Korean children survived infancy. Ritual food and objects are arranged around the child on a dolsang 돌상 to receive guests and gifts, while various items representing potential future fortunes and omens are placed on the floor for the child to randomly grab (thus sealing their own fate) during the doljabi 돌잡이 ceremony.

"Does Halmeoni love her half-Korean grandchildren half as much?" I pondered once as I witnessed the dol ceremonies of our cousins (the ones with Korean names chosen by their Korean father's father). Perhaps it is better to avoid thinking there is only one predetermined destiny to manifest for oneself.

Yankee Doljanchi, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

The Body Remembers 身体记得

This vessel may still carry the innate talents and physical skills of past generations, unrealized and untouched by the fickle, feeble conscious mind.

[eirikswood]

Ballad of the War Bride / 전쟁신부가

Before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and Loving v. Virginia (1967), the War Brides Act (1945) allowed spouses and children of American military service members stationed in Asia a path of immigration and naturalization that had been banned or heavily restricted since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Ballad of the War Bride, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

Trưng Sisters Summon the Bách Việt (Baak Jyut) / 徵氏姐妹感召百粤

The rebellion of the sisters Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị (40-43 CE) is revered in modern Vietnamese history as the first of several uprisings and resistance movements during a thousand year period known as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Eras of Northern Domination (111 BCE - 938 CE). During the preceding Triệu dynasty (204-111 BCE), the many Việt tribes of the Pearl River and Red River regions were united by a former Qin military general and governor named Triệu Đà / Zhao Tuo. This multicultural independent state was known as the kingdom of Nam Việt (Nanyue) and its name is the etymological origin of both the modern Việtnamese and Yue/Yuht (Cantonese) languages and peoples. In its fifth generation, Nam Việt was conquered by the imperial expansion of the Han dynasty, renamed as Giao Châu (Jiao province), and its distinctly matrilineal and egalitarian family structures and social customs were heavily suppressed under a Confucian system of patrilineal land ownership and tax administration. In 264 CE, the province of Quảng Châu (present day Guangdong and Guangxi) was created out of the eastern half of Giao, and this division is nearly identical to the modern colonial borders between East and Southeast Asia, as Việt people gained independence from Han Chinese culture, Yuht people were assimilated and/or displaced by it.

Trung Sisters Summon the Baak Jyut, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

Dragon and Phoenix Duet (Song of Fertility and Virility)

Cantonese and Vietnamese restaurants large enough to serve as banquet halls often feature a dragon and phoenix mural as an auspicious background for the traditional ten course wedding feast. Representing a harmonious union of yin and yang, the phoenix and dragon are often accompanied by the "double happiness" symbol (囍).

Dragon and Phoenix Duet (Song of Fertility and Virility), an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

The Perpetual Subjugation of Joseon-guk

an allegorical depiction of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and Empress Myeongseong (1851-1895), based on Le Supplice de Jane Grey (1833) by French painter Hippolyte "Paul" Delaroche

The Perpetual Subjugation of Joseon-guk, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.

[eirikswood]

Sampalseon Jultagi / 삼팔선 줄타기 (38th Parallel Tightrope Walk)

This modern chapter of two Koreas is older than our mother but younger than our grandfather.  The division begins with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and remains unresolved after eight decades (three generations of absolute monarchy in the North and five failed constitutions and military coups in the South).

Sampalseon Jultagi, an art print by Eric Chan

This is a gallery-quality giclée art print on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks.