Submission

Title: The Peony Artist Statement 150 words Chung-Ping Ching As a photographer, I use the camera to celebrate my Chinese heritage while breaking with traditional norms of Chinese Art. My background is in Chinese painting and calligraphy but the camera offers a different perspective of viewing the subject. Using a Hassalblad film camera, I experiment more with process leaving my work open to chance. Line, color and perspective become conceptual elements of a formal process. I look to artists such as Georgia O’Keefe and Diane Arbus for their unique views of seeing the world as well as going outside the traditional norms of being an artist and a woman. My recent work features the symbolic Chinese flower the Peony, which is known to represent beautiful women; in ancient China,Now I utilize it to depict women, their beauty, their elegance, emotion and character. I don’t take traditional shots of flowers, rather I use the large-scale and unique perspective to draw attention to the many layers both physically and metaphorically. l