A red snake with gold “scales” is winding through the walls of the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown as part of a celebration of the Lunar New Year.
“We invited people to come and cut out scales from a gold shimmery paper, and then we prompted them to write or draw their Lunar New Year wish,” said artist Amanda Beard Garcia, who painted the indoor mural over several days in January. “Some people made one wish and a few people did multiple.”
After using colored markers, the kids and adults taped the scales onto her work, which runs through Feb. 28, that’s part of a larger celebration of the Year of the Snake.
Beard Garcia, who was trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, said the idea for her mural was inspired by traditional Chinese paper cutting as well as the Chinese zodiac.
A familiar face in Chinatown, she had worked with Pao Arts on various projects since the early 2020s.
“I’m in my 30s, and I feel like this exploration of my Chinese ancestry and heritage has been kind of new for me. So, I feel like a lot of that is starting to come through in my personal and professional work,” she told the Sampan last week by phone, about her collaborations with Pao.
Born and raised on the North Shore, Beard Garcia didn’t spend a lot of time in the city, aside from visiting grandparents in Brookline, and felt somewhat detached from her Chinese American identity.
“Growing up, I didn’t feel a super strong tie to my Asian Americanness,” she said. “It was something that I didn’t talk about a lot growing up. But lately in the past few years it’s been really important to me to reforge that connection to my identity and my family’s connection here.”
Her influences include modern artists, especially West Coast muralists Stevie Shao and Lauren YS, who goes by @squid.licker on Instagram.
“There are so many visual artists and designers and even musicians who influence me,” she said, but she is also heavily inspired by traditional themes, history and arts.
How does she feel that her snake will be painted over after the exhibit ends in a week from now?
“I would say at this point in my career I’m used to it, because most public art is temporary. Nothing truly lasts forever. But I feel like in a sense it makes it more special, because it’s so short-lived.”
Other artists at the exhibit include photographer Angela Rowlings, Anna Hu, Brian Zhu, Chandarith Moeun, Colomba Klenner, Cynthia Medina Flores, Dajia Zhou, Dana Balletta, Emily DeMauro, IJ Chan, Jinyi Duan, Maggie Zhang, Mingliang Han, ponnapa prakkamakul, Tenest Tang, and Zhonghe Li.
