The Sun Represents Your Heart (at dawn)
太陽代表妳的心(黎明)
The Sun Represents Your Heart (at dawn), a short graphic novel memoir by artist MK Wong, invites you to experience a visually engaging journey that celebrates the profound bond between an elderly mother and her adult child—a relationship defined by family caregiving. The story, told through a fantastical lens, explores the multiple roles of an elder—as a mother, wife, friend, patient, and volunteer—and ultimately, as an individual navigating her own mortality. Born from the rising racial discrimination faced by the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, especially since the pandemic, the project also offers a poignant look at healthcare inequities for elders with limited English proficiency. In doing so, the project not only celebrates Wong’s mother but also honors countless AAPI elders and others who face similar challenges. Commissioned by San Francisco Arts Commission, the event includes an artist’s talk and storytelling.
Related Events
- San Francisco Public Library (Richmond Branch): Artist Talk (Fall 2025)
- City College of San Francisco (Chinatown Campus): Artist Talk (Fall 2025)
Breaking the Silence: Art & Mental Health
打破禁忌：藝術與心理健康
According to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), compared to those of other racial backgrounds, Asian Americans, especially immigrants, are the racial group least likely to receive mental health treatment – only 20.8% of Asian adults with a mental illness received treatment in 2020. The proposal, “Breaking the Silence: Art and Mental Health (打破禁忌：藝術與心理健康),” composed of seven sequential, autobiographical illustrative paintings highlighting critical moments often experienced by families of loved ones diagnosed with a severe mental illness, intends to raise mental health awareness within the AAPI community as well as other minority communities. Mental illness affects not only the patient, but the entire family as well. The paintings chronicle a younger brother’s witness of his teenage sister’s mental deterioration over time. In the paintings, colors, fantastical elements, and real-life objects intermingle and come together to break down the heaviness of the topics and reconstruct them into a visually engaging story accessible to a wide range of audiences.
Related Events:
- 6th Annual National Alliance on Mental Illness Contra Costa AAPI Mental Health Awareness, UC Berkeley (Spring 2025)
About the Artist
My practice is a forensic and emotional excavation of “unearthed” histories, centered on the invisible labor of caregiving and the resilience of immigrant families. My work functions as a bridge across time, narrated through a dual lens: the visceral, unfiltered perspective of my childhood self and the informed, advocacy-driven viewpoint of my adulthood. This intersection allows me to confront systemic inequities and the “model minority” myth by centering narratives that are often sidelined in Western historical accounts.
I specialize in sequential narratives and graphic novel memoirs, utilizing a visual language I describe as “heightened reality.” By pairing mundane, real-life objects with surrealist metaphors, I translate complex themes—such as the emotional landscape of elderly care, the weight of medical advocacy, and the nuances of cultural identity—into accessible, atmospheric stories. My work is intentionally grounded in a non-Western perspective, honoring the damaging effects of colonialism on the colonized while celebrating the preservation of heritage within the immigrant communities of San Francisco.
Technically, my process is a hybrid of the physical and the digital. Each composition begins with traditional drawing, where I intentionally preserve the residues of erased pencil markings. These “ghosts” of the initial sketch are vital; they provide a trace of human touch within a digital format, acting as a metaphor for the persistence of memory and the labor of the hand. I then layer these sketches with digital color and texture, creating a final product that feels both modern and historically rooted. My goal is to demand active participation from the viewer, inviting them to embrace the unfamiliar and recognize the profound dignity in the everyday act of care.
