Artist Statement
By honoring skills honed out of scarcity and necessity, I remix heritage craft traditions—such as paj ntaub (Hmong embroidery), bojagi (Korean patchwork quilting), and minhwa (Korean folk painting)—into contemporary art, engaging with my ancestors and intuition through material processes. I explore the intersections of ancestry, mental health, folk magic, and resilience through hand-making, allowing the work to accrue layers and transform over time.
My work is diaristic, drawing inspiration from personal rituals, life experiences, beings I love, books I read, places I've lived, and dynamic self-explorations. My projects begin with research. I then let my intuition wander between subjects, mediums, and methods—taking notes and journaling along the way. There will be a moment when the project begins to crystallize, transforming from experiments into a concept that demands to be unearthed. This is when I enter a phase of repetition and concentration, repeating an action over and over until it accumulates into a new form. The work will continue to iterate as materials are layered and removed, coalescing until it reaches its natural stopping point. I complete my projects by tying up any loose threads and sharing the finished piece with my communities.
What is intuition if not accumulated generational knowledge? Epigenetic research speculates that trauma and resilience are passed down generationally. Because I'm of distinct ethnic backgrounds—Hmong and Korean—born on stolen land built with stolen labor, healing intergenerational trauma is complex. No singular modality will work; a hybridization of approaches is needed to promote restoration and resilience. As a queer person, I understand my ancestors and descendants to also include chosen family. By conferring with my inner voice, I'm in conversation with myself, my chosen ancestors, and those who call to me from the future. After all, time is not linear.
Artist Biography
At five years old, I began creating art as a form of entertainment. My sister, best friend, and I sketched out original characters inhabiting fantastical worlds inspired by our favorite cartoons, comics, and anime. After my parents' divorce, my mom moved us from Minneapolis, MN to the suburbs. Here I attended public schools with strong and well-funded art curriculums with enthusiastic teachers. I am lucky and privileged that, in my childhood, I made art in community (with my sister, cousins, and best friend) and had my interest nurtured by adults. In the suburbs, however, I struggled with undiagnosed mental illnesses, a learning disability, being closeted, relationship abuse, and sexual violence. I was raised by a single, refugee mother in a conservative town that was 94% caucasian. Creating art saved me.
During my BA at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, I designed my own major: a combination of Social Justice, Leadership, and Communication Studies. Although I drew when I could, I didn't take a single art course; I thought working as a community organizer or non-profit employee would be more financially viable than being an artist. It was in the depths of seasonal depression that I finally asked myself, "What makes little Tori happy?" My inner child simply replied, "Art."
My art career began in 2017 as a self-taught illustrator, creating community art spaces and promoting social justice, civic engagement, and environmental responsibility. My illustrations have been published by Haymarket Books (2022), UCLA (2020), University of Minnesota (2019), among others. I’ve worked with clients such as: Stanford University, Rhode Island School of Design, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Lamba Legal, Race Forward, and more. I am now based in Providence, RI, where I received my MFA in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design (2025).
Select awards include: the RISD Graduate Commons Grant Fellowship (2025), RISD Spur Fund (2025), AICAD Teaching Fellowship nominee (2025), AIGA Worldstudio DxD Scholarship (2024-2025), Everwood Artist Retreat (2024), Springboard for the Arts Hinge Arts Residency (2021), MRAC Next Step Fund (2020), Forecast Public Art Early Career Research and Development Grant (2020), and more.
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