Poppy Field

2026

Engraved aluminum in artist’s frame

48.5 x 32.25 in, a set of 3

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I rewatched my VHS tape of The Wizard of Oz endlessly as a child because I had to learn the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for a play. Over time, the tape degraded. The “poppy tears”, referencing to the use of opium, turned Dorothy into a deep sleep, hindering the journey home, conjured by the Wicked Witch. The poppy field became a storm of glitches, the image failing right where the story pauses between danger and return. In those damaged frames, I recognize something I still live with: the longing for home, and the noise that gathers around its disappearance. Entangled across media culture, political history, and personal memory, the poppy became the point of departure for the series.

 

Poppy Tears is a historical term for opium, referring to the cuts on the poppy pod from which latex seeps like tears. Bringing together organic and industrial materials, the work explores how nature has been instrumentalized as a medium of control in war and imperial expansion.