Polin Huang

Artist Statement

Polin Huang is a Taiwanese multidisciplinary artist currently based in the United States. Through vibrant colors, glitter, humor, and dreamlike imagery, her work explores identity, belonging, and the experience of existing between cultures.

Glitter plays a central role in her practice. Often associated with childhood fantasy and celebration, it becomes a metaphor for identity itself—layered, constructed, and constantly shifting. Its dazzling surface attracts attention while concealing complexity, reflecting the tension between how individuals are perceived and how they experience themselves internally.

Drawing from her experience as an immigrant, Huang creates fantastical worlds inhabited by hybrid creatures, anthropomorphic animals, and exaggerated female figures. These characters serve as symbolic self-portraits, embodying the fluid nature of identity and the challenge of navigating multiple cultural realities simultaneously. Existing somewhere between fantasy and autobiography, they reflect the feeling of belonging to more than one place while never fully belonging to any single one.

Huang's paintings are intentionally playful yet psychologically charged. The bright colors and glittering surfaces contrast with themes of displacement, self-discovery, and transformation. Influenced by folk art, popular culture, childhood illustrations, and personal experiences, she uses humor and visual excess to challenge assumptions surrounding identity, gender, and cultural expectations.

Rather than seeking a fixed definition of self, Huang embraces ambiguity. Her work invites viewers to consider identity as an evolving process—one shaped by migration, relationships, memory, and imagination.