ARTIST STATEMENT

I was born and raised in the heart of the vast steppes and luminous mountains of Mongolia. I grew up in a society of parallel dysfunctions during the Socialist regime; an oppressive period when strong cultural censorship and Communist idealism shaped my adolescent mind.

My most prominent migratory experience came in 1999 when I immigrated to the United Stated with my family from Mongolia. My identity as a first generation Mongolian American migrant allows a life of duality where opposing cultural values of my Eastern and Western identities constantly clash and fuse; creating a marginal periphery of absent origin. My ever-revolving identity as a nomadic voyeur profoundly shapes my artistic process. I am interested in expressing the embattled emotional middle space of the marginal person whose identity in transience.

My artistic process derives from a balance of intuitive and concept driven method of experimental creation. My artworks integrate much of my cultural and spiritual roots, embracing an abstract expressionist flare. In my paintings, I seek to create visual tension through automatic and intended mark making between realism and expression.

I am professionally trained in the art of the traditional Mongolian painting “Mongol Zurag”, ancient Mongolian “Tsam” mask making, and Buddhist scroll painting “Thangka”. I combine these three deeply traditional artistic practices with conceptual abstract narratives to examine the tensions/high social inequalities between traditional and urbanizing cultures in modern Mongolian and American societies. By way of juxtaposing figurative elements, traditional motifs, and contemporary icons with natural materials – I aim to create a visual language connecting the old with the new to depict the mental states of suffocation and alienation due to urbanization, overcrowding, and high social inequalities in today’s world.