Member Spotlight: Elaine Chao

Elsa Lamere
Who are you and where are you currently located?

Elaine Chao
I'm Elaine Chao, a multimedia artist based in Queens, New York.

Elsa Lamere
What brought you to Queens?

Elaine Chao
I was born and raised in East Queens, so I didn't go very far. I'm on the West side of Queens.

Elsa Lamere
One of your pieces, Beast of Burden III (Foe), is currently a part of the New Media Caucus exhibition, The Art of Disappearing. Would you like to tell us more about this piece?

Elaine Chao
Beast of Burden is a series directed at unloading the weight of some aspects of identity. The series is about four years old, but some of these themes remain highly pertinent to how we view identity and otherness. Sometimes there are parts of who we are that can feel heavy, and choosing to celebrate rather than suppressing that heaviness can be liberating.
“Foe” alludes to “othering” that antagonizes difference. The resulting impulse is either to lessen this difference or to assimilate into a normative society. But the work puts the words “outsider” and “foreigner” in a central position where they’re not being hidden. Putting the Chinese characters for “foreigner” above the word “foe” is related to a common experience I have as an American with Chinese heritage. This being that China is posed as a big threat to the United States, and I have this split between my identities. Where do I fit in? I have my grandma and cousins in Beijing. Could I ever be their foe and vice versa?

Elsa Lamere
And does the mixed media that you've chosen, digital printmaking in conjunction with the more classical and cultural styles, have any specific significance to everything you're trying to convey?

Elaine Chao
I think the method that I chose went along with the idea of being liberated from the feeling that things must be done in a certain way, or that you have to behave a certain way to fit in. There's this idea that classical painting is kind of the pinnacle of making art. So, for this body of work, I painted, photographed those paintings, and edited them so the painting is not the pinnacle. It's not the ultimate destination. It's just part of making material. The painting then became sort of its own palette I was sampling from. I could take multiple paintings, layer them, and then draw on top in Procreate. There is this notion that new technology is the next step, but rather an adjacent step, so we aren’t leaving older media behind. We can use older media in conjunction with newer tools.

Elsa Lamere
I'm with you there. And what does being a part of this specific exhibition in the New Media Caucus mean to you?

Elaine Chao
I was very happy when Abigail approached me to be a part of this exhibition, I think especially because the work she selected was an older piece. Making new media art is about being a part of a larger inquiry into art and progress. And what is progress? What does it mean to adopt new media, and how does it then relate to older forms of media? I like looking at newer developments as alternatives to what we already have, rather than replacements. There is this impetus for newer technologies to become the dominant mode of being. I know that even for me, streaming is replacing television, and I'm not watching cable TV anymore. Because this exhibition is virtual, it's like an alternative to the traditional white wall gallery setting. With The Art of Disappearing, you can move around in the space and interact with the art being presented, which is also a step beyond scrolling through static images. These virtual spaces aren’t replacing physical spaces, but it can be an addition to going to an in-person gallery. Anyone can check out a virtual exhibition and still have an enriching experience.

Elsa Lamere
I agree! That’s great. And do you have any current projects that you would like to talk about as well?

Elaine Chao
Yes, I am working on an interactive visual novel, but it's in such an early stage of production and so much is bound to change. So, there's not much definitive I can say about it, but I am learning a program to make it an interactive game-like story.

Elsa Lamere
That's so exciting. Do you have anything you can share about the story it will tell or anything like that?

Elaine Chao
I think that the story will deal with some of the themes that we already touched upon, but also what it means to be on the precipice of something, and how new things are impacting society. It will look at the role of students and young people who were born into this age of change, how they deal with being a part of an established system while also wanting to enact change, and how those two forces conflict.

Elsa Lamere
That’s awesome, I will be keeping an eye out for that. And just to finish off, where can people see your work physically and digitally?

Elaine Chao
My portfolio is at ciaoelainebetty.myportfolio.com.
If anyone wants to see work in person, my studio is at Kunstraum in Clinton Hill. If they want to arrange a studio visit, I'm more than happy.