Wk4 – Artist Conversation #1 – Chanmealea Huy

Info Block

Artist: Chanmealea Huy
Exhibition: Glass Eyes
Media: Ceramics & Paintings Installation
Gallery: CSULB School of Art

For my first “Artist Conversation” assignment, I went to the SOA Galleries where I visited Chanmealea Huy’s “Glass Eyes” art exhibition. Chanmealea is currently an undergraduate student and is under the BFA Pre-production program. Huy explains how the pre-production program is “geared towards the animation industry” and shares how she isn’t fully interested in this area as much anymore. Huy also shared that she is minoring in business and recently began taking marketing courses for it. Huy enjoys her art because she uses it as a way to creatively express herself, saying, “This gallery is actually an opportunity for me to do something outside of my major”.

When you walk into Chanmealea’s art exhibit, you are immediately surrounded by bursts of brightly painted drawings. The artists features a different style of media for mostly every piece. Some of her paintings include randomly placed lines of color throughout the canvas while others feature bubble-looking circles of paint on the canvas. Chanmealea uses both primary colors and pastel colors in most of her paintings, following a nice color scheme that flows effortlessly throughout that piece.

The artists explores an empowering sense through her paintings. After being asked to share what she was depicting, she explains that most of her paintings are purposely made to be “bold” and eye-catching. Chanmealea explains one of her pieces and states how her “character” in that painting was “challenging hyperfemininity” since she was very “fem presenting”. Chanmealea also goes for a “futuristic” feel to her paintings which explains why most her paintings feature “human-hybrid” looking figures. Chanmealea also shares how her paintings include anxiety-like undertones because she feels that in today’s time, we are always anxious or stressing out about what our roles in society should be, but she believes its time for us to just be ourselves and live the way we want to.

I truly enjoyed this exhibition because I was able to receive a message from all the pieces I viewed. I was able to see how Chanmealea is combating societal norms and instead embracing “odd-looking” ways of representation. The figures that she paints are oftentimes dressed in ways others would classify as being “weird” but the way she depicts them is bold and proud-like. Her pieces are not afraid fo owning their space and feel very empowering. Things like this resonate with me because it’s what my ideas are mostly based around. I believe that people should always feel empowered and deserve the right to express themselves freely and openly without being afraid of being judged by others.