“ It's true I'm not a writer
but a faucet underwater."
- Ocean Vuong , Time is a Mother
Yi
My name is Yi Believe and I am a Hakka-Chinese American artist based in Boston (raised in Massachusetts). Hakka 客家 means "guest people" in Chinese and is a Han ethnicity.
As a so-called "guest" person both in China, and then also as a 'guest' in America (the first person in my family to be born in America), I am interested in dichotomy dialogues between guest and home, belonging and longing, inclusion and exclusion, invisibility and hyper-visibility.
My paintings aim to pull at these tensions. I cultivate forms in gradients of stability and saturation, to reimagine or reconstruct facets of these conversations around identity.
In May 2024, I graduated from SMFA at Tufts. My solo exhibition "Third and a Half Space" at the Mission Hill Gallery. This body of work dovetailed cultural methods of expression, creating a symbiosis of seeming differences.
Solo Show (s)
Third and a Half Space (April 22 - April 28, 2024). Mission Hill Graduate Gallery at the SMFA at Tufts University. Boston, Massachusetts.
Selected Group Shows
Open Call Big Show (June 27 - July 23, 2024). No Call No Show Gallery. Boston, Massachusetts.
Dean's Suite Food Project (April 15 - May 7, 2024). Dean's Suite at the SMFA at Tufts University. Boston, Massachusetts.
The In Between (March 24 - April 6, 2024). Mission Hill Graduate Gallery at the SMFA at Tufts University. Boston, Massachusetts.
Large Format Portraits (February 20 - March 12, 2024). BAG Gallery at the SMFA at Tufts University. Boston, Massachusetts.
Visions Unveiled (November 26 - December 8, 2023). Mission Hill Graduate Gallery at the SMFA at Tufts University. Boston, Massachusetts.
The Edward Mitchell Bannister National Exhibition: Celebrating BIPOC Artists (June 18 - July 14, 2023). Maxwell Mays and Mary Castelnovo Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island.
About Face, Curated by Michelle May and Payal Thiffault (July 27 - August 27, 2023). Fountain Street Gallery. Boston, Massachusetts.
Awards
Esteemed Named Award, Bradford F. Swan Prize for Oil at Edward Mitchell Bannister National Exhibition - Awarded June 29, 2023