Forrest McGarvey
Forrest McGarvey (he/him) is a Korean-Japanese-haole artist and writer who was born and raised on Oʻahu and currently living in the Bay Area. When creating, he explores themes of failure, performativity, and ownership through relationships that we share with ourselves, media, and our personal history. He received an MA in Visual and Critical Studies and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the California College of the Arts.
Dress Up
mixed media collage, 8″ x 10″, 2019-2020
Ja Nai
mixed media collage, 8″ x 10″, 2019-2020
“These collages navigate the combinations of inherited traits that come with a mixed race experience. I combine images and icons of personal meaning with generic, stereotypical, or iconic images often associated with my identity as an queer asian person. The resulting collages are reflection on visibility, invisibility, performativity, and embodiment.”
—Forrest McGarvey
Curator's Note
We chose these collages because of the relevance to new, digital media platforms that are commonplace within the younger generations of Pasifika and Asian-Pacific Islander communities today. McGarvey’s combination of these formal choices via collaged elements are linked with his multi-ethnic background and the intersections of cultural and gender identity that he faces as a queer Asian individual living apart from Hawaiʻi.
