Artwork Credits
Mei Lam So is an artist and printmaker from Wisconsin, who is currently enrolled in the printmaking graduate program at the University of Iowa. In 2018, she graduated with distinction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Fine Arts focusing in printmaking and drawing.
Mei Lam’s work focuses on the integration and disintegration of identity within the context of cultural and familial relationships. She explores topics surrounding the acculturation process of bi-cultural Asian immigrants; particularly, how others navigate and integrate their own conflicting values and beliefs. Using printmaking, Mei Lam creates narratives that share her experiences of being a bi-cultural individual and its perennial condition of balancing various identities.
From the Artist
"My work explores issues and experiences surrounding the process of acculturation, such as the socio-cultural and psychological adjustments of bicultural Asian immigrants. I focus on the integration and disintegration of identity within the context of cultural influence and familial relationships; how immigrants change their behaviors, beliefs and values towards themselves and others.
My current body of work investigates what the American dream means to immigrants; how it creates conflicts and broadens the acculturation gap between immigrant parents and their offspring that in turn affects their relationship. I have developed a lexicon of symbols to present the allure and elusiveness of an American dream, and this inter-generational conflict: the long arms symbolize both family and personal expectations, the paper cranes represents the idea of immigrant success and dreams, a repetitive pond scene as a backdrop to convey emotions and memories of hope. "