Jasmine Blooms At Night
Jasmine Blooms At Night is an on going series of 40 sculptural and painted portraits that makes visible the work of South Asian American feminists who are generating incredible social change on a local and international level. They include a range of feminists across age, sexual orientation, religions, national origins and caste. It includes lawyers, educators, activists and writers across generations who are contributing to transforming our socio political landscapes. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and her gender non conforming child Janak are the best known figures in this series . The portraits are created with the input of the subjects including choice of image and colors, symbols and framing to reflect their choices. The embellishments and decorative elements, the compositions and colors are specific to South Asian culture and aesthetic traditions. This series of paintings and sculptures doesn’t just document my South Asian American feminist organizers community, it creates new ones through building relationships between feminists and organizations who would create greater social change in solidarity with one another. As the series grows, the feminists learn about one another’s work.
Commissioned by Alexandra Chang for Then and Now, 25th anniversary exhibition of the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia in 2017. Exhibited in expanded form at BRIC in 2019
