Miki Beyer

BA Painting with Photography Minor

ARTIST STATEMENT: As a non-binary Vietnamese-Salvadoran lesbian whose sense of community, family, and ancestral ties have often felt absent, I’m driven by my longing for connection, both to a stable sense of self and to a homeland I feel completely removed from. My work visualizes my internal conflict with my desires--the desire to be seen, the desire for familial connection, the desire for stability and self-assurance--and my realization that every step towards understanding myself has never brought me closer to a destination. My work is often immediate, painted in one session, photographing a fleeting moment, messy and unkempt--I create work to alleviate an immediate feelings, to process an immediate thought, to quickly and briefly satiate an urge of longing. I explore my own feelings of being an imposter, aching for something to ground me with no guidance to lead me, and question my right to reclaim a culture that I’m forced to discover on my own.