Ming Oy: Thousand Buddha ( Series)
My art is inspired by known and unknown places: ancient Buddhist grotto paintings in my distant homeland.
Growing up as a teenager in Kashgar studying art, my class made a pilgrimage to see paintings in the famous Kizil Buddhist grottoes in Aksu Prefecture. I didn’t realize they would come to be so important to me until I moved to the US, prompting me to think about my identity and what my art should represent. I imitate the rich, aged, weathered colors, texture and shapes of grotto paintings to depict the Uyghur people’s nomadic, Buddhistic and Islamic experiences for thousands of years
