A Thousand Koi (2023-present)

The koi in this ongoing series are not subjects but living brushstrokes: gestures that emerge, dissolve, and reconstitute within liquid space. Saturated reds and oranges move across fluid grounds, echoing the gestural release of Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler while honoring the ink-wash discipline of Wang Meng and Wu Zhen. Water becomes paint. Observation becomes mantra.

Photographed in various koi ponds between Northern and Southern California, the work was made during a period of rediscovery to create a message of hope and rebirth through an AAPI lens. The series turns to East Asian visual traditions — negative space, poetic restraint, the principle of wu wei — to find a vocabulary for a psychological experience that exists outside Western clinical frames.

The title carries two meanings: the Chinese symbol of abundance, and the Buddhist teaching that we contain multitudes. Each fish proposes a different relationship to presence — some bold and surface-seeking, others content to drift in deeper currents. Together, they ask what resilience looks like when it includes pause, floating, and the courage to become visible again.

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