Suva to Sydney
Duo Show
Year
2025
Materials
Oil paintings, acrylic installations
Exhibition
'Suva to Sydney'
Art Space on the Concourse duo show with father Kevin Yee
Key Questions
Who were your ancestors? What do you know about them?
What actions of theirs have benefited you?
Who will your decedents be? Will they know who you were and what you did/did for them?
What do we owe our ancestors?
Collaborators
Kevin Yee (artworks not pictured)
Description of the work
Suva to Sydney explores the Yee clan’s immigration story to Australia. From humble beginnings in rural Guangzhou, China, to entrepreneurial migrants in Suva, Fiji, and finally to settled citizens in Sydney, the exhibition is deeply personal, yet also representative of an archetypal passage to a better life in Australia.
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Told through a series of artistic vignettes of the mundane and momentous, Suva to Sydney provides viewers with a portrait of a hard-won intergenerational voyage across the seas, while also acting as a conduit to broader discourses of global migration, Australian identity, and everyday family life. Works include oil paintings, acrylic paintings, works on paper and installations.​​
My Father's Father's Memoir
This is a portrait of my father and I. in this scene he is reading his father’s memoir. As he reads about our family’s history, different symbols from Chinese culture begin to appear around us. a tiger symbolises bravery and strength, coins symbolise prosperity, and a magpie symbolises good fortune. The more he reads, the more we learn, the more things appear. We can’t seem to escape them.
Time is Likened to an Arrow (Triptych)
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My connection to the three significant locations in our family’s migration journey (China, Fiji and Australia) differ greatly. This triptych of landscapes articulates my varying degrees of cultural understanding and familiarity with each place.
In the first work I am only able to peer through the opening words of my grandfather’s memoir to see the rural Chinese rice fields beyond. In the second, a tropical Fijian beachscape is clearer yet still blurred. In the third, I can see the Australian bush, but my grandfather's words have become opaque. Collectively, the works function as a metaphor for what is gained and lost between generations of migrant families and acknowledges the life I have been afforded by those I don’t truly know and would perhaps not fully understand.
A Feeling in Flight​
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Birds have played a significant role in my painting practice for the past few years, often painted as an adjacent subject to the Australian landscape. here, I have painted three birds found in china, three birds found in fiji, and three birds found in australia. The collection is grouped as a simple reflection on voyage, nature and nativeness.​
