Like Mother Like Daughter
(and then I found myself drowning in self-expectations), 2021

This painting was created under an impression of how women of different generations in the same family can influence on each other's life. When a daughter grows up and slowly absorbs the habits, belief, behaviours and even appearance from her mother - who also "inherited" those features from the grandmother. Many people - especially the women in the family themselves - explain it as "family cultures" that has to be passed down through generations. Yet sometimes, those "cultures" are not just the values and traditions of a family, but also the misfortunes and ill-fated futures that such traditions lead to. When the daughter - who used to object and refuse to learn those values, as she has been witnessing her mother's sufferings under the pressure of those traditions - realised that she has been subconsciously soaking up the lifestyle that she was once afraid of, and became another version of her own mother. Such dreadful sensation of losing her own "identity" and preparing for the hardships that are soon going to transfer onto her shoulders feels like she's slowly being drowned in her own self expectations and conflicts. She needs to be able to handle the responsibilities that her mother has been carrying, while also wants to escape the suffering path her mother had been through. The more "traditional" she became, the more her own personality disappeared. Yet she has been playing the role of a "good daughter" for too long in front of other people, she's afraid of being disapproved, of feeling worthless if she stop herself from fulfilling the ideal image that her family (and her mother) have on her. 

​

Sooner or later, her once existed old-self will fully disappear, leaving behind an ideal, traditional grown woman. Perhaps she will sometimes miss that little girl from her childhood, perhaps she will completely forget about her, or worse, maybe she will turn to hate on that oblivious, uncultured, childish self who she used to be.