Hui-Ying Tsai

Double Carps

2023, canvas, acrylic paint, plant material, thread, cotton fabric, tea leaves, dimensions variable

Double Carps expresses Hui-Ying Tsai's deep sense of connection to her two deceased, Taiwanese grandmothers and to the natural world. The soft sculptures reference Tsai's childhood pillow, which her maternal grandmom stuffed with dried tea leaves. (These sculptures are stuffed with autumn leaves from the Philadelphia area, but the fish carry hand-made amulets filled with the fragrant tea.) The carp imagery references the split air-dried fish that Tsai grew up eating at her paternal grandmother’s home on the fishing island of Penghu, and the entire piece echoes an ancient Chinese poem, influential to Tsai, that recounts a woman receiving a letter inside a carved, wooden carp. Double Carps bears a message, too: a story of intimate bonds between family, tea leaves, water and fish, and a story of two female ancestors meeting in Tsai's own self.