Tidawhitney Lek
Tidawhitney Lek (b. 1992) is an artist based in Los Angeles. She received a BFA from California State University, Long Beach in 2017.
Lek’s work has been exhibited at Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA; the Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA; Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami, FL; the Armory Show, New York, NY; and Made in LA 2023 at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, among other galleries and institutions. Her work has been acquired by Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; East West Bank Collection, Pasadena, CA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; K11 Foundation, Hong Kong; ICA Miami, Miami, FL; Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA.
Bony Ramirez
Craig Taylor
Dabin Ahn
Drew Dodge
Edd Ravn
Hein Koh
Ji Woo Kim
Jin Jeong
KangHee Kim
Miwa Neishi
Reuben Paterson
Sahana Ramakrishnan
Shuyi Cao
Shyama Golden
Sophia Heymans
Su Su
Sung Hwa Kim
Wanki Min
Yoora Lee
Yujie Li
Yuri Yuan
Zayira Ray
Courtesy of the artist.
Courtesy of the artist.
Courtesy of the artist.
Courtesy of the artist.
Image Credit: © 2024 Christie’s Images Ltd.
Courtesy of the artist.
memory/
Painting about my identity was always something I avoided. There were difficult conversations at home about family dynamics, generational trauma, and violence that my family members and I refused to have. Each time I tried to sit down with my siblings and talk about our family history, it would always devolve into them shutting me out. I didn’t know how to process that family tension or the unhappiness I experienced in my childhood.
Meeting the artist Amir Fallah was a turning point for me. I met Amir after I graduated from college and was still painting in abstraction. As an abstract painter, I drenched myself in intuition. Figurative work requires a different intentionality in the imagery you select. Amir was having genuine conversations about himself and his identity through his work, which sparked my interest in figurative painting. This blossomed into a challenge I wanted to apply to my studio practice.
Before my paintings were displayed to the public, I confronted the idea that if my paintings were doing their job, they inevitably would make my family feel uncomfortable. I laid out parts of my family’s story and unease on the canvas. I intentionally painted images of my family members and their narratives. I thought, if the paintings were working, my family wouldn’t be able to look away. The paintings might start conversations that I couldn’t start myself.
It worked. My siblings started asking me questions, and some even felt deeply uncomfortable seeing themselves in my paintings and on gallery walls. The paintings became a place to document, archive, and affirm my feelings. My life’s narrative is abstractly woven together and you see those gaps in the story on the canvas. I work to sew up those holes.
Image credit: Mason Kuehler. Courtesy of the artist.
line/
I experienced a pretty unhappy childhood, but I decided in 2014 that I wanted to overhaul my life. I wanted to become a painter. Painting felt like the only thing that gave me direction, so I placed all of my energy into it. I had another awakening in 2020. That was when I really found my voice. I didn’t know what I looked like for a long time, but I suddenly thought, “This is what you look like, Tida! This is you, a Cambodian-American woman growing up in Long Beach.” Kerry James Marshall planted an early seed in me when I saw his retrospective at MOCA. He speaks extensively about mastery, which is an important word to me. Mastery refers to a point of perfection and extensive knowledge. My mind always returns to the issue of mastery when I’m looking to push myself or gain focus. Right now, I’m distilling my practice back down to oil painting. I think I’ve become muddled, using too many tools and mediums. The way I tackle vital questions, such as "What do I have to say about women? Or the Asian Diaspora?” depends on my mastery of a medium and the constraints it may present.
Work in progress.
Image credit: Mason Kuehler. Courtesy of the artist.
Image credit: Mason Kuehler. Courtesy of the artist.
color/
Repetition is an important tool in my practice because it forces me to release control. I work subconsciously, repeating motifs like windows and gates in my paintings until they lead me to new places. The window bars were the beginning of everything. I remember sitting in front of the window as a child and wondering why we had these ugly bars in front of the window all of the time. Yet, the bars reminded me of home. The windows and gates became portals, moving me from one space to another–to the other homes I lived in, to the gardens, and to the people who passed through. In my paintings, I seamlessly sew together thresholds to disparate spaces, environments, and timelines. I want my paintings to feel like the sky. Do you ever look at the sky and see the sun setting on the horizon, but the moon and stars emerge overhead in a seamless gradient of time? I attempt a similar visual effect in my work, but I use architectural elements–stucco, brick, gates, and plants–to sew the seams between different timelines. It is a challenge to use 2D visual cues that evoke the characteristics of 3D experience, emotion, or memory.
As I continue to paint, I continue to test myself and my family. Recently, I painted two of my sisters who have a complicated love-and-hate relationship. In this exercise, I asked one sister to rest her head on the other’s lap. The pose captured their reliance and closeness, but they found it so uncomfortable that I had them try the pose with our mom. They experienced a motherly, physical affection they had craved, yet never faced, and they both melted into her lap. These exercises are more than tests; they are spaces for conversation and healing.
Gabrielle Luu is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY and the Editor-in-Chief of Civil Art.