Graphic by Gill Kwok
Throughout her artistic career, one thing has commonly come to the minds of those who see Mei Chen’s work: “Awe, that’s so sweet that you would make something so little.”
Mei, a 25-year-old Boston-based artist, has skillfully learned to deflect the patronizing tone that people often accidentally cast toward the tininess of her work. She acknowledges that their words are well intended, but that they often keep her from seeing her work as legitimate. She has always been drawn to the miniature; years ago, she began her artistic journey by felting small woodland creatures, who, in her words, inexplicably had huge dump truck asses. But when she grew tired of the “cute” artist label, she decided to take on more provocative images. Today, her current oeuvre consists of small polymer clay hands in various positions that are worn as jewelry. Available in a variety of skin tones, her hands hold a multitude of striking objects, from ethereal crystals to gory, bleeding hearts.
Hands are notoriously difficult objects to craft. Mei laughed as she recalled some of the earlier hands that she had botched when she first started out. “When I first started making them, dude, they looked so bad. They looked busted.” She described her “hand graveyard,” a nail polish dish with a collection of disjointed fingers and disproportionate palms. But it is this exact difficulty associated with hands that drew Mei to them in the first place: She loves a challenge, and her goal is to make hands until she perfects them.
“I’m a perfectionist, right? I think a lot of people who have been traumatized are, as a coping mechanism,” Mei explained while we discussed her artistic process and her adoption of a growth mindset. “When you experience failure, you either never do it again or you do it so hard until you perfect it.” Mei describes herself as belonging to the latter camp: When she wants to get good at something, she tells herself that she has to do it 100 times. Even though she is well past the 100th mark, she has no plans to cease the loving labor of crafting hands.
But it isn’t only the artistic challenge that makes hands so alluring to Mei. I shamelessly asked her the most common question she receives: Why hands? “Hands are so very human,” she explained, “You can tell the way someone is feeling by looking at their hands.” Just like in faces, hands can reveal someone’s emotions or intentions with the smallest change or movement. The effective, simple image of the hand prompts the elusive sense of human touch. The intimacy of hands is what makes them the perfect mode of communication, allowing the artist to express whatever message she likes on an innately human canvas. This is what allowed Mei to veer away from the “cute” while remaining true to her affinity for tininess. Bloody hearts, middle fingers and sharp painted nails all assert the emotive power of hands and serve as a mirror to all those who relate to their expression.
In the pursuit to steer away from cuteness, Mei has struck a tone of honesty and transparency in her work that reflects her growth as an artist. She has deemed herself “the bifecta”: bisexual, bilingual and bipolar. She has worked hard to embrace the elements of her life and personality that at one point kept her from validating her position as a fine artist. In speaking about her bipolar disorder, she said, “I didn’t consider myself an artist, I just thought I had a lot of hyperfixations and lots of hobbies.” Though it’s been a long journey, the simple act of being able to call herself an artist has allowed Mei to stop debasing her talents and start owning her “bifecta” as a rich enhancement to both her artistic and personal identity.
While Mei’s work may be small, one can’t ignore her boundless artistic presence on the internet. When I went to research her work before we talked, I found that she existed online in many places and forms. In addition to her Instagram and Etsy shop, she also produces TikToks (one of which recently accrued more than half a million views) and videos for YouTube where she documents her creative process. In her YouTube videos, she records herself carefully crafting her hands while talking about true crime stories. While watching, I felt oddly comforted listening to her tell freaky murder stories. I realized that watching her videos and viewing her hand sculptures evoke a similar response in me: They both are very humanizing. Just like her hand sculptures that reflect the stories, histories and feelings of the people who appreciate them, her videos and social media platforms create additional space for human connection.
Being an artist with a presence on the internet, Mei sees the members of her virtual community as integral to the execution of her work. The visual oversaturation of social media platforms can drown out individual voices, creating a unique challenge for artists of the internet age. They must not only present their work but also carve out a space in which their audience can interact with it in a meaningful way. What defines and shapes Mei’s corner of the internet is the infectious confidence she has come to exude through her work. When asked in the past about what makes her hands unique, Mei has responded that they are unique because she made them. This intrinsic value that is placed on her artistic identity creates an open space for anyone and everyone to receive and love her work. Mei wants anyone to be able to see and understand what she does. “I want someone to look at the shit that I’m making and be like, ‘That looks like it was made for me.’”
These informal, online spaces often seem directly contradictory to the traditional spaces in which art is presented. As someone who didn’t grow up visiting museums or gallery spaces, Mei recalled how uncomfortable she felt the first time that she went to a gallery, and she felt that she didn’t belong there. She acknowledged that for her and other people of color, she feels that she is often kept on the sidelines of these spaces due to the lack of representation within them. While she doesn’t ever see herself presenting her work in a gallery space, her plans to go to art school reflect her infectious curiosity about the art world that lies beyond her community. “I’m literally in this weird little bubble of a really specific art piece,” she explained, “I don’t even know what’s out there. I’m just here to learn.”
Near the end of our conversation, I asked Mei about a poem she has on the “about” page of her website. The poem, “The Orange” by Wendy Cope, paints a scene of friends sharing an orange and draws attention to the beauty of the simple things in life. Mei’s face lit up when I brought up the poem, and she explained that after receiving adequate treatment for her bipolar disorder, she had the mind space to appreciate the small things in life. “That poem just succinctly brings together that release from the suffering that I had been a part of … but it’s so simple. That’s the thing. It’s always so simple.”
And so we concluded that the simplicity of smallness, often dismissed as cute, can reveal the most valuable truths. And the joy that Mei brings to those who encounter her work is anything but small.