Felicia Chiao: Strange Pain

Taking the familiar and skewing it in surreal ways, Felicia Chiao illustrates painful human emotion by creating visual representations of feelings that can usually only be experienced. Whether it be a room with no windows or the dark bulbous personification of inner struggle, the "Strange Pain" referenced throughout the exhibition is evident.

Chiao's autobiographical work chooses to focus on vulnerable aspects of what it means to be human. She creates worlds in which our fear, anxiety and depression appear as physical as they feel. Given this new physical form, they are illustrated as amorphous blobs sitting on our laps pinning us down under the weight of depression, as smothering anxiety looming around the next corner, and as a pit in our stomach when we can not find the motivation to be productive as seen in Lamp Light.