The Sheep/Goat Scroll
This is the artist statement for the Sheep/Goat 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 Sheep/Goat Scroll is about the Asian American immigrant experience of survival through assimilation.
The Sheep/Goat Scroll
The painting itself measures 27” x 40”, but in its final form mounted to silk brocade, it unravels to 3’ x 6’. The background of this painting is covered in grayish blue swirls representing clouds. In front of those clouds are the faces of sheep in varying positions. The bottom half of the painting features a goat’s head painted boldly with downcast eyes and ram’s horns curling up and outward. To the left of the goat’s head is a sheep's head with a mischievous gaze and its nose pointed in the direction of the goat’s head; this is the only sheep head depicted with a mouth.
My family raised me to believe that, of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac, the Sheep/Goat represents the attributes of determination, harmony, humility and leadership.
My family immigrated to the US in the 1990’s and moved into a community made up almost entirely of white people, mostly of Northern and Western European descent. At that time, just ~50 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 ended in 1943, assimilation equated survival as a New American.
There is often confusion around which animal, the Sheep or the Goat, is represented in the Chinese Zodiac. (I don’t know which one is culturally correct, but a quick Google search will offer a variety of answers relating to the way Chinese characters for “goat” are sometimes translated as “sheep” in English.) I chose to incorporate both the sheep and the goat in this painting as a visual comparison of races represented in the community I grew up in, as well as to highlight the cultural confusion that can result from the loss of shared-meaning during language translation.
The goat’s head with ram horns is meant to represent the racial differences of my family and our community and the impossibility of blending in physically. The sheep’s head facing the goat represents the common experience many immigrant people share of being undermined or taken advantage of by folks naively thought to be friends during their first years in a new country. The expression on the goat’s face is meant to express a discouraged emotional state and evoke compassion.
This painting speaks to the difficulties that come with being different or existing as “exotic.”
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.
