“not too sweet, not too rancid, but just right”

for the past semester in my advanced painting class, i’ve been examining and reflecting on different motifs from home & trying to define what home means to me. in such a season of change with graduating and trying to decide what pathway to take next, whether it be to return home or to stay in california, trying to determine where or what i define as home now & how to stay grounded while being 2,500 miles away. trying to process and come to terms with how the home that i’ve known & hold close to my heart is ever and constantly changing & will never be the same and how i am nostalgic for a memory of places and a feeling that now barely exists.

in my 12 works this semester, i depicted elements from my childhood that define home for me. an ice cold hawaiian sun, a closet full of my grandpas aloha shirts, a bag of lychee from an auntie on the side of the road, hawaiian quilted pillows from my grandma’s house, a bowl of saimin, the koolaus in the morning, a passed down aloha shirt from my ojiichan, white rabbit candy and the ridiculous frank de lima cab commercial that always gets stuck in your head. it was impossible not to include and important to me to depict the disparities in hawai’i as well. how many may think of hawai’i as “the aloha state” when that is far from the reality for many. when we reside on stolen land and the houseless population is disproportionately kanaka maoli, with indigenous hawaiians making up over half of all homeless individuals yet only representing 20% of the states total population. how native peoples are being priced out of their homes with the cost of living raised on them, then forced out of their homes. how the navy has been contaminating our drinking water with fuel for years. the detrimental impact of tourism and colonization on the hawaiian islands and the direct impact it has on the indigenous and local population.

(thank you as always to my amazing friends, family & prof for all the insight & love❤️)

 ~˗ˏˋtyana miyakoˎˊ˗ on tyana.m  

@mike.saechao @cosmosclouds


instagram ...read more