"My work is rooted in an investigation around cultural identity, highlighted by the ways in which patterns serve as powerful and ubiquitous markers of class - as symbols of arriving and belonging. I am engaged in a practice of appropriation, reassertion, and subversion of meaning, one that allows me to navigate through the complex space of social and cultural values, longings, anxieties and fears. I mine my own experience as source material, and integrate imagery from multiple and divergent sources, such as ethnic images from gift cards, t-shirts, wrapping paper, and instructional gimcrack. Intertwining traditional Chinese textile design, European wallpaper patterns, and contemporary graphic design, I juxtapose elements of identity with visual icons drawn from my experience growing up in Orange County in order to participate in a dialogue around the larger issues of race, gender, class and the commodification of culture." — Julie Chang