A Spark Ignites A Prairie Fire

This piece was commissioned by Katie Wang and created in collaboration with Cynthia Yuan Cheng, in response to a call from Katie for more Lunar New Year red envelope art that celebrated and welcomed into our lives fortune of a more radical form than monetary wealth.

Focusing on collective action, justice, organizing, and the power of people together to shape our institutions and futures, our 2024 Lunar New Year piece depicts twin dragon dance dragons held aloft in the streets by the people of the community. The fire from the people’s dragons set fire to a building representing exploitative institutions focused on profit over people, while protest signs at the bottom reflect current fights for justice – for the people of Palestine and beyond. The twin borders contain organizers’ megaphones spitting fire that light firecrackers of justice, which contain the Chinese characters for “wood dragon,” as 2024 is the year of the wood dragon.

The phrases in the banners at the top and the bottom are traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions which are also translated into English: A spark ignites a prairie fire; a drop of water penetrates stone. Actions that may seem small or insignificant can grow to vast movements and strengths unimaginable to us now. Together with the phrase at the top – “they didn’t know we were seeds” – we hope to bring motivation for movement towards cleansing and rejuvenating fire as well as rebirth and healing growth to this new Year of the Dragon 2024.

The piece is screenprinted with metallic gold ink on 8.5x11 100lb red paper.

I also will be taking preorders until 2/19 for 11x17 screenprints.

Note: I screenprint these pieces by hand, which means there may be small imperfections or inconsistencies between prints!