Pinky Promise follows the heartline through interpersonal relationships and self-love, conceptually exploring the associations and intimacy of lovers, as well as the narratives of inner monologues. Color is used to evoke tenderness and trust, centering the show around ties that bind us to others. Jacob Z. Wan is a Florida based bookbinder who employs text,...
Pinky Promise follows the heartline through interpersonal relationships and self-love, conceptually exploring the associations and intimacy of lovers, as well as the narratives of inner monologues. Color is used to evoke tenderness and trust, centering the show around ties that bind us to others. Jacob Z. Wan is a Florida based bookbinder who employs text, story, and collected objects to process personal growth and maturation that blooms into self-love. As a gay Chinese man, he hopes to inspire resilience and self-compassion in marginalized individuals. Currently based in Georgia, Lila Villalobos creates archetypes drawn from their experience. Their flat and cartoon-like figures portray inner worlds where feelings and events are filtered and translated into an undulating mindscape.
Drawing on their own reminiscence, Jacob Wan and Dodd MFA candidate, Lila Villalobos create parallel narratives in their work. Through visceral color and gentle textures, Villalobos’ and Wan’s work embodies humanness and how love and experience shapes one’s understanding of the world. The concept of the self is traced through each artist’s life through found objects and pictorial reminiscence. Pieces work together to evoke sentimentality, personal evolution, queerness and affection. The artist’s energy is prevalent in their similarly sized flat works. The prints and painting oppose each other in their intensity and motion while communicating similar facets of vitality and connection. Compassion and empathy are born from friendship and love. The artists hope to engage their audience in closeness, communion, and connection with a reminder of interconnectedness throughout their lives and community. In holding space through representation, this show aims to begin the mending of wounds and challenge each viewer’s narratives of themselves.
