Haydon, KCPham, XuânIglesias, LisaWei, Qingyang2023-06-052023-06-052023-06-05http://hdl.handle.net/10166/6422My artworks reflect my identity expression based on a range of cultural norms that I have experienced in my life. Through my studio practice, I express my autonomy and rebellion against the patriarchal social expectations regarding how I am supposed to think or behave. I implement cultural change by sharing my personal worldview through my artworks as I reach toward reconciliation within myself. Inspired by contemporary female artists from China and the United States, I remix my autobiographical experiences with Chinese ideologies and folk tales, and Western contemporary feminist literature. The resulting images are featured in a series of charcoal drawings and acrylic paintings, where the former is influenced by traditional Chinese landscape paintings and Daoist beliefs about nature and humans, while the latter features expressive brushstrokes inspired by Western ideas about automatic drawings revealing subconscious thoughts. Ultimately, these two approaches are fused into a double-sided artwork: the charcoal drawings are attached to the back of the acrylic paintings on stretched canvas, demonstrating the inseparable and mutually-inclusive nature of the impact of the two cultures that affect my artistic expression and personality. My thesis project is a visual interpretation of feminism and feminist cultural productions. I articulate my own complexity as an independent human being, ultimately proclaiming self-autonomy and emancipation through a series of expressive paintings.en-USartpsychologyThesisrestricted