Combining voices both homegrown in the United States and connected to Asia, curator John Cino put together an introspective, contemplative, and surprising exhibition of the works of Asian American artists.

On display until April 24 is “Asia America” at The Museum of Modern Art (MoCA), Patchogue Arts Council, on Terry Street.

The exhibit features the artwork of Mahnoor Nasir Khan, Razan Al Sharraf, Seema Lisa Pandya, Han Qin, Seung Lee, Takafumi Ide and Etty Yaniv

“Asia, with an area of over 17 million square miles, makes up one-third of all the Earth’s landmass.  Its 4.6 billion people make up nearly 60 percent of the global population.  Put another way, the five other inhabited continents have more than 1 billion less people combined,” said Cino, adding, “the people of Asia represent the greatest diversity of cultures of any continent, ranging from Mediterranean and Arabic to Japanese and Indonesian. Each one of those cultures is represented in the United States. So, to what exactly does the term Asian American refer?  Clearly, there is no single image evoked by the term Asian American.”

The exhibit in full provides hints to the diversity found in these disparate cultures, with the artists equally diverse in their media and intent.  

The exhibition is meant to give an answer to the question, “What is it to be Asian?”  

With over half of the world’s population living on the continent and millions more that have migrated to other parts of the globe, those who could be considered of Asian heritage is a significant portion of the global citizenry.  

Kuwaiti multimedia artist Razan Al Sharraf currently practices her art in Los Angeles. In paintings (“Mother and Child”) and video (“Seeds after Black Gold”), she explores “the social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of the Arab world, especially as they relate to women.”  She draws upon a range of individual, familial, and cultural experiences and phenomena, including the rituals of Shia women and the experiences of her mother during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In “Mother and Child,” she offers a strong sense of maternal care, even as the figures are anonymous, referring to the political position of women in her home.

South Asian, Brooklyn-based Seema Lisa Pandya is both a multidisciplinary artist and a sustainability consultant.  Her work explores the complex interfaces between numerous natural and human-made systems. In “Sine between You and Me,” fractal forms in positive and negative interpenetrate, evoking permeable organic membranes.   

Chinese printmaker and multi-disciplinary artist Han Qin explores the issues of “migration and belongingness, of home and relocation, and of nostalgia and anticipation.”  

Her works “White Goddess #’s 1 & 2” embody duality, as they are created by the process of cyanotype on traditional rice paper.  

Cyanotype is a ‘proto-photographic chemical process in which light activates a surface treated with a sensitive emulsion, producing a characteristic blue tint.  Each piece offers us a view of the full moon.  “White Goddess #1 & 2” contemplate a popular Chinese notion that people separated by distance may share in the experience of the same view.

Korean American painter and mixed-media artist Seung Lee expresses his concern for the environment through a body of work based on Kodama, a Japanese spirit which inhabits trees.  “Blue Tree” offers a palpable energy field, which seems to be emitted by the work’s subject. In “Bent but Strong Together,” he turns his attention to a traditional subject, bamboo.  According to Cino, “[this piece] reminds us in these times of pandemic that we need strength and flexibility to find peace and balance on the individual and societal level.”

Japanese artist Takafumi Ide is an interdisciplinary media artist working in sound/light installations and augmented reality.  His works begin with a single word that encompasses a personal experience or current emotional state from which the piece is built.  For “Embrace,” he contemplates the complex relationship between the nations and peoples of Russia and Ukraine through augmented reality.  

Wall mounted are two grids which combine the colors of Russian and Ukrainian flags.  When viewed through the lens of an iPad, the viewer sees strategic missiles, which are blocked from reaching their destination by a heart and a dove, respectively.  

Israeli artist Etty Yaniv uses a multimedia collage technique in works which range from two dimensional, to relief, to sculpted objects and installations. “Transient Presence” offers an excerpt of a much larger installation, and it is built from clusters of repurposed materials, painted visual images gathered from her studio and everyday life.  According to Yaniv, “they blur the line between the real and the imagined, the organic and the artificial, the chaotic and the orderly.”  

Seen from a distance, they read as geologic formations, whereas up close the viewer can observe tiny narratives from the artist’s daily experiences.