Originally from Seoul, Korea, painter Mary Laube came to the US at a young age when she was adopted by a family in the Chicago suburbs. In the Summer of 2019, she went back to Korea to reunite with a place that is a distant yet commanding part of her identity.
Laube’s transracial and transcultural experiences have formed a backdrop for a new direction in her work. Her new paintings are marked with signifiers of Korean culture that are absent in her earlier painting. To quote Laube, “My recent work explores the hybrid nature of identity, cultural displacement, and diaspora. I make synthesized forms that are born from paraphrasing and re-imagining historical artifacts. Objects such as wrapping cloths, ink stones, Buddhist statues, and shaman symbology are processed through painting. They emerge as imaginative forms that re-shape seemingly mummified fragments of history, into unstable, and mutable ideas.” Curious about this new body of work, Ian Etter spoke with Laube about her history, travels, influences, and what happens next.
Ian Etter: Exactly when did you first arrive in the states, and what brought about the decision to return to Korea?
Mary Laube: I came to the U.S. in 1987 when I was almost 2. My decision to go back when I did was largely prompted by the birth of my first son, and the unique fact that he was my only known blood relative. Every day I was confronted with the surreal experience of seeing my own face in his. This, coupled with the fact that I grew up in a predominantly white suburb of Chicago prompted me to look intensely at my own ancestry and the absent community that shaped my experience and identity in the United States.
IE: Your work has focused on memory for a while now, can you tell us how revisiting Korea has influenced or changed your work?
ML: Visiting Korea marked a significant change in my work. In the past my paintings used imagery from my everyday surroundings, forming metaphors for my own subjective experience of memory and memorialization. I am now thinking more about how my identity can be included in representations of a collective history – one that is hybrid and continually revised.
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Read the full conversation at dovetailmag.com
