Exploring Visual Metaphor

Operating with digitally manipulated self-portraiture, visual metaphor, found object sculptural forms and surrealistic imagery, “You Know that Feeling You Get Right After You Vomit? Yeah, I Want to Feel That” navigates what it means to exist between social boundaries such as sexual orientation, race or culture through the surrealistic realization of abjection and uncanniness. Such “in-betweeness” is represented by images of my body fractured and separated into limbs and torsos as a metaphor for the split psyche. By referencing traditional tropes within art history, such as flowers, fruit, the nude and death portraiture, I redefine myself in my own terms from the ground up. 

To exist in between social boundaries is to be defined by uncertainty and isolation, to be simultaneously accepted and rejected. This contradiction causes a psychic dissonance, or a mental contradiction of belonging; to exist in between is to exist uncannily. I celebrate life with “You Know that Feeling You Get Right After You Vomit? Yeah, I Want to Feel That” and define my world on my own terms, and welcome others to join me in doing so.

- Jin Chan ’20 (Photography and Related Media)