Joanna Mae Mones

Culture is a significant part of people’s identity as they mark connections defining their land, communities, and traditions. However, through immigration, challenges emerge when attempting to adapt within a new country while maintaining to remain loyal to your ethnic descent, the complexity of an identity crisis. Young immigrants, notably, seek to belong as a new member of another country while simultaneously holding the burden of familial expectations.  

From Joanna’s perspective, she has personally experienced the difficulty of being divided by two – worlds, resulting in the creation of abstraction to convey immersive spaces that reflect her conflicting sense of belonging. By utilizing acrylic paint to form boundaries and tension, Joanna is able to translate internal feelings associated with reaffirming her Filipino culture while balancing her connections within a Western environment. Other times, these manifestations are within otherworldly spaces that reveal the chaos of her conflicting thoughts. Combining both the softness of colours and sharp breaks through lines frame her entanglement of cultural distance, loss of community, and new opportunities over time. And ultimately, the subconscious exploration of two cultural practices uncovers emotional and social changes of an anxious immigrant child, in this case, Joanna herself.

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