You Are Beautiful

~

Exhibit: “Find Your Way” exhibition at Workshop 4200
Location: Chicago, IL
Year: 2017
Organized by: Matthew Hoffman
Material: Ink on wood

Matthew Hoffman started his well-known “You Are Beautiful” movement back in 2002, just to empower people. In 2016, he gathered over a hundred artists around the world to created their own You Are Beautiful boards. Bright Side, a website where immigrants can share their inspiring stories to empower each other partnered up with Matthew again in 2017 to send boards to 100 immigrant artists across the US. The boards were all in the artists’ native language. The vision for the exhibit is the chance to say we may come from different backgrounds, but we’re all beautiful in our own way.

Food is one of the things I love most about being Vietnamese. For my board, I decided to draw an illustrative pattern on the board inspired by my favorite dish, phở, by breaking down the ingredients in the recipe. I drew icons that are on traditional pho bowls and chili peppers for the border, and then placed the peppers, lime, ginger, onions, star anise pods, basil leaves, water, and noodles in a pattern on one side and then mirrored it on the other side.