The Horse Scroll
This is the artist statement for the Horse scroll, one of 12 paintings that make up the artwork series “The Audacity to be Asian in Rural America: we owe you no apologies” created in May of 2021 as a part of Springboard for the Arts’ Artists Respond: Equitable Rural Futures.
The Horse Scroll is about the complexity of third culture and the sacrifice immigrant parents make when establishing a life in a new country for the sake of their offspring.
The Horse Scroll
The painting itself measures 27” x 40”, but in its final form mounted to silk brocade, it unravels to 3’ x 6’. The painting depicts the outline of a horse looking off to the distance from behind. The background of this painting is filled with transparent ghostly green Ss, representing spirit horses, all running in the same direction from left to right.
My family raised me to believe that, of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac, the Horse represents the attributes of diligence, power, perseverance and freedom.
Despite being raised below the poverty line, from the age of five to 15, my mother would save up all year so we could make return trips to her hometown of Lanzhou, Gansu, China during summer after school was out of session. These trips ranged in length anywhere from three to seven weeks, and most of them were spent visiting our extended family, my brother’s paternal relatives, and my mother’s friends.
During these trips we were welcomed into many different homes where I was exposed to a vast range of aesthetic, art, alters and decor. Common to many of my mother’s friends’ households were carved sculptures of wood, stone, and jade, which is where I drew the inspiration for the spirit horses depicted in this painting. In China, it's common to see horses depicted as running or charging as a herd across all artwork mediums. The specific sculpture I reference in this painting is a green jadeite sculpture of eight galloping horses I recall seeing around the ages of 7-9.
Over the years, it became apparent to me during and after these trips that the culture gap between my mother and her friends was widening. As time went on, their ways of life diverged, causing their distanced communication to dwindle, and connection with one another to become effortful.
To me, it seemed like all of the relationships formed in my mother’s first 30 years of life seemed to be moving in a similar direction…just without her. At one point, when I was 17, I asked my mom why she had no plans to move back to China permanently. Her response was that she had become “too American.”
This painting is a snapshot of sorrow. The horse in the foreground represents my mother at the end of a visit to her motherland. The horse’s distant gaze represents the chasm of culture between my mother and her community of origin. The herd of spirit horses running perpendicular to the horse in the foreground represent the family and friends she had and still has in China that, from my perspective, have moved on to common-amongst-them ways of life without her.
This painting speaks to the melancholy ache that many folks living in Asian Diaspora echo; a deep longing for a community and culture they once knew that no longer exists.
Nancy X. Valentine is a fiscal year 2022 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
