Memoirs of a Banana Girl

This last month, a friend and former classmate of mine named Lizzy Choi had her senior exhibition titled Memoirs of a Banana Girl at the Eduardo Carillo Gallery on the UCSC campus. Her works were mainly woodblock relief prints and paintings. Lizzy Choi is an LGBT+ Korean-American artist and expresses herself with imagery of her personal life, struggles with mental illness, and cultural experiences both traditionally and in the landscape of American culture as a minority.

Some of her more impressive print pieces were her reduction based woodblock relief prints. Lizzy’s art tend to either have a blue red color pallette, or bright neons yellows and pinks, in both her prints and paintings. The first print pictured below, “BLUE VIOLETS” is a 19x25 inch woodblock, printed as  4 layer reduction. This process is where with each layer of the print, the layer is carved and printed on one woodblock, and then carved more for the following layer (usually printed from the lightest to darkest color), until the last layer is completed. The second print pictured below, “JADE BRAINS,” is a 19x23 inch woodblock, also with a 4 layer reduction. The last print shown here is a 21x25 inch woodblock relief titled “토니학” and 5 layer reduction print.

Her pieces are consistent with colors and themes, usually subtle darker colors for imagery she creates of quieter scenes or still life pieces, and brighter eye catching colors for her more energetic prints and paintings like her piece “토니학.” What I love about Lizzy’s work, is the way she expresses different aspects of herself and her life experiences. Her prints shown here are more about her cultural experiences, but still show emotions such as excitement or comfort. Some of her other paintings in her gallery (and portfolio in general), she strongly expresses her personal struggles with depression and anxiety. I enjoy the way Lizzy places herself within her work, and it inspires me to want to create more personal pieces within my own work, as I have struggled expressing my emotions or personal opinions into pieces or having deeper meanings to my work other than what is on the surface.