Roberta’s Art Gallery, in the UC, is currently featuring Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyoo’s “Re/connections” from August 17 to September 15. “Re/connections” is a colorful Hmong artwork that is worth seeing, especially for anyone interested in Hmong culture, beautiful works of art that have a powerful meaning, or contemporary art. Within the exhibit, Xiong/Xyooj’s use of patterns and processes that are both from Hmong and American emblems makes the trip to see the exhibit incredibly worth it.
The themes behind the art pieces that he uses include resilience, displacement, and adaption. They are shown through the lens of a mother who is raising her eight children in a concealed land that is the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The pieces draw upon the truancy and unknown of a new world and how to navigate and challenge relationships through colonization, displacement, and assimilation. Xiong/Xyooj was really uplifted by seeing his mom working multiple jobs, which are related to the materials that were utilized in making the art pieces.
The exhibit tries to re/connect and give honor and homage to a single working mother in a Western World, who is strong, self-sufficient, resilient, and powerful. Xiong/Xyooj says, “my artwork explores how stateless and displaced people can reconnect to their culture and history.” He says, “this exhibit helps to show how stateless and displaced people navigate identity within dominant spaces.”
During the Vietnam War, Xiong/Xyoo immigrated from Thailand to the United States as a Hmong refugee. He was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Metals and Jewelry. He also received his Master of Fine Arts from New Mexico State University. He is a Fulbright Scholar who collaborated and researched with Hmong artisans in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from 2019 to 2020. The work of Xiong/Xyooj has been put on display nationally throughout the United States, as well as published internationally in Australia.