While painter Arlan Huang and amateur Cantonese opera performer Mee Mee Chin are part of the same family, they grew up very differently. Arlan was American born to American-born parents. Mee Mee was born in China and came to the U.S. as a child. Arlan is from San Francisco while Mee Mee is from New York. Arlan's parents encouraged his art while Mee Mee didn’t realize until later that she had the freedom to choose her own career.

But they also have much in common. They’re both artists. They’re both close with their families but at the same time feel a distance between themselves and older generations. They both want to close that distance and hoped their exhibition would help do that.

Through abstract paintings and traditional Cantonese opera costumes, CLOSING DISTANCES explored what it means to be Asian American, whether born here or not. The works played off each other: the paintings reminiscent of silk dress patterns and long ago Chinese banquets, the costumes full of history and meaning, not just about Chinese culture but Chinese culture in America.

They also represent dichotomies — contemporary versus traditional, new versus historical, made in America versus made in China — but have just as many commonalities. The deep infusion of memory, the longtime influence of culture, the closeness and distance, sometimes simultaneously, with family.

The artists hoped CLOSING DISTANCES provided a place for those dichotomies and commonalities to intersect, and for different generations, cultures, and viewpoints to come together.

About the artists

Arlan Huang was born in Bangor, Maine, raised in San Francisco, and currently resides in NYC. As a painter and sculptor, his labor intensive handwork complements his seemingly simple and elegant forms, resulting in a body of work that exemplifies what Allen Ginsberg called “the dearness of the vanishing moment.” His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Trestle Gallery, Walter Randel Gallery, Bowery Poetry Club, EXIT Art, Art in General, and AIR Zenkoji in Japan. He has also designed public works for the San Francisco Art Commission and created permanent installations for the Museum of Chinese in America, Percent for Art, Baron Capital, Manhattan Community College, and the Dormitory Authority of the state of New York. He was a 2014 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Creating a Living Legacy award, and was the first of the CALL artists to be featured in a CALL/VoCA Talk in October 2015. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute and City College of San Francisco, and received his BFA from Pratt Institute.

Mee Mee Chin was born in Guangdong province, China, spent her childhood in Hong Kong, and emigrated with her family to New York City when she was 12. After working as a secretary in various industries, she earned her design degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She worked as designer for several years before opening her own bridal shop, designing custom gowns. In 2004, she started performing Cantonese opera “accidentally” when she classes advertised by the Man Chee Dramatic and Benevolent Association, and by 2010 began doing so more formally. Her costume collection came about when Man Chee moved after nearly 100 years in the same building. In addition to performing, Chin works as a translator.

Learn more about the artists in our interview with them.