Tami Han "Calm Kettle Lady" (2025) acrylic and oil on canvas 20 x 20
"Calm Kettle Lady" © 2025 by Tami Han
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Tami Han "Boiling kettle lady" (2025) acrylic and oil on canvas 30 x 22
"Boiling kettle lady" © 2025 by Tami Han
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
I used to have the vision of this image long before I attended the Emily Carr University. I even considered creating an artwork based on the vision I had for my portfolio but somehow the image vanished into my unconscious realm.
I had to come up with three paintings for my final project in one of my third year painting class in Emily Carr. As I ran out of a lot of sources to work around, naturally I went back to my old memories and triggers.
I used to suffer significantly with the combination of the panic attacks and dreadful social anxiety in my early 20s. I hated how my face turned into glowing red which made me have even harder time to focus on the dialogue I shared with the other person since my focus were all centred to my worries about how red my face turned.
This painting "Boiling kettle lady" centred around that uncomfortable emotions of suffocation and anxiety of wanting to escape from that social interaction but incapable of doing so.
In contrast to that "Boiling Kettle Lady" I wanted to make the reflection of my progress of still embracing with anxiety and panic attacks but the subtle changes in my life over time. As I usually advocate to give hopeful messages to my bodies of paintings, I wanted to convey a hopeful message that, although that dreadful anxiety, fear of exposing shames and panic attacks within myself are still within myself, the calmness is possible to be regained.
I decided to give my own solution by illustrating a big middle finger. To say "fuck you to those and just not be feared to expose myself." A sense of aggression to some degree is a good defence for myself in this harsh reality.