(upbeat music) - The new series is based off of six women.

So far it's kind of "The Token Specimen".

(upbeat music continues) The paintings started really as a reflection of seeing only works of males, white, Caucasian, European in the portrait gallery.

And I was interested in what that observation led me to consider making works that were geared more towards Southeast Asian females, and to also think about them as token specimens or token Asians.

And so the specimen component is based off of the baroque and thinking about them in vitrine, the glass vitrine that we are still looked at a little differently.

I wanted the persona of these women to be very powerful and also to have that gaze so as the viewer or the audience who are looking at them, they command a presence.

And that was important for me because women, Southeast Asian women or Asian women in general have been viewed or even, you know, shown on movies and films as very submissive, or, you know, they're in the corner somewhere that's serving you.

But these women, they are paving a way for the younger generation of Asian women.

And so their presence is very important, and the way that they engage and the way that they hold themselves.

It's more about growth, about change, about supporting each other.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) Being a multidisciplinary artist, my work ranges from fabric to oil painting to bronze, all the works.

The thread that runs through them is me being an immigrant refugee artist and my experience growing up in America.

But also being displaced, and the Southeast Asian kinda diasporic experiences.

(upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] This "NPT Arts Break" is made possible by the generous support of the Martha Rivers Ingram Advised Fund of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.