Nixon Returning Home Robed in Embroidered Silk (Taiwanese-American, Roger)

Taiwanese-American Nixon — Gwenn Seemel
*Nixon Returning Home Robed in Embroidered Silk (Taiwanese-American, Roger)*
2008
acrylic on canvas scroll
42 x 42 inches

$2000

This was not my first painting on unmounted canvas. In 2006, I made two scroll artworks—this one and this one. Below is the subject’s answer to this question: what does it mean to be an American?

American is an unique identity. Being Asian is to be a condition of history, while being an American is to be an experience of inconsistent ideologies. The conditions of history have molded our identity so there is less discrepancy between what we believe and what we experience (but also the shallow comfort of an afterlife) but being an American is to live a life that has a huge gap when what we believe and what we experience. The joy and challenge of being an American is to find true experience among inauthentic landscape. While there may not be comfort, there is always novelty.

- Roger