Ripping Layers

My layered-paper technique began after traveling through Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, and later Hong Kong, where I was surrounded by surfaces shaped by time. Peeling paint, softened patterns, weathered walls, and tropical plants reclaiming architecture made me see how history settles into materials.

In Angkor Wat, time felt visible: ancient stones eroded by centuries of touch, carvings disappearing into moss, nature folding itself back into the structures. Everything was fragile and resilient at once. That experience changed the way I approached my own surfaces. I realized beauty was not a final, polished layer. It was everything that survived underneath.

That trip also opened a new way of looking at clothing and textiles. In the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok, the layered fabrics, hand-woven patterns, and rich colors made me see how textiles hold history. That sensitivity shaped pieces like Blossoming Beyond a Bruised Heart, Embracing the Rain, and Looking at a Life Unfolding, where garments and patterns add emotional resonance and expand the narrative of each figure.

My process is both physical and metaphorical, a way of expressing the layers of emotion and change that shape who we are. Tearing the paper reveals traces of earlier decisions, moments of release, of letting go, of discovering what lies beneath. Each exposed layer becomes part of the story.

There is a shift between each layer. Some become detailed and resolved, while others stay loose, raw, or barely sketched. I do this on purpose. Each layer holds a different version of me: fragile lines, bold marks, unfinished ideas, changes in color or mood. We grow unevenly, and I let the work show that. Not everything needs to be finished to be true.

Some layers feel like scrolls slowly unrolling, revealing what was hidden until the moment of the tear, history unfolding through time, damage, and care. For me, there is always a next page, another surface waiting to be revealed, something new to understand about myself and others.

Tearing becomes an act of excavation.
Repairing becomes part of the surface.
The layers hold what time leaves behind.

Each piece is built like those places I walked through: layered, weathered, repaired, transformed. The torn edges remind me that change is never clean, but it is always honest.