"John, Da Lat" 1997
 
Eline Mugaas Norway
Born 1969
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, USA, Bachelor of Fine Arts 1989-1993 Ramapoo College, New Jersey, USA, 1988-89
 
   
Mugaas often works with the beauty and simplicity of the everyday life. Her artworks have an intuitive character where the scenes are not arranged. She finds her motifs in big cities, in anonymous hotel rooms and landscapes.

When applying migration and globalisation to real life, to real persons, they easily dissolve or loose their more simplistic aspects. For instance ethnic, cultural and national identity are concepts strongly related to particular contexts, not to single persons. To the individual, however, migration and globalisation represent very personal experiences. Mugaas here illustrates the same motifs by different contexts. John is a Vietnamese living in N.Y. He is also an American born in Vietnam. In the US this makes him an Asian American.

John, Da Lat
By a waterfall in Da Lat, the mountain town some hours north of Ho Chi Minh City, a popular vacation spot for the Vietnamese. The picture could be from anywhere. To John, however it bears great personal significance. To him it represents his first trip back, only to learn that he there no longer belonged and was looked upon as an American tourist.
 
 




"John, N.Y.C" 1996


John, N.Y.C

In Chinatown in New York City where John lives. His relationship with this place is very complicated. It is a place where he both feels at home and a foreigner. The image is printed as a postcard greeting from N.Y.