Kelly Tsai
KELLY TSAI is a Brooklyn-based, award-winning interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of photography, performance, music, dance, film, and technology. Her persona portrait photo series “SKyGiRLS” has been published in F-Stop Magazine’s “Telling Stories” issue, exhibited in NYC, CT, FL, DC, and selected as a Curious Elixirs’ Curious Creators Finalist (top 3% of 1400+). Her fellowships include New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Live Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Asian American Arts Alliance, and as a finalist for Creative Capital and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Her interdisciplinary works have been presented at hundreds of venues worldwide, including Fotografiska X VICE, Brooklyn Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, BRIC, Museum of Chinese in America, Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art, Whitechapel Gallery London, Abrons Arts Center, Ars Nova, HERE, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the Apollo Theater. She is an alum of NYU’s ITP Camp for creative technology and 5th Wall Forum’s live performance XR incubator. (kellytsai.com, instagram.com/kellytsai_nyc)
Artist Statement
SKyGiRLS is a series of constructed persona portrait diptychs exploring intriguing women of the Chinese diaspora. The project’s goal is neither to highlight heroes nor historical figures, but to embody complicated Chinese women who never fit into known precedents.
The series was inspired during the height of the pandemic’s anti-Asian violence. By recreating these women, I found a healing environment to explore my identity. The series name comes from Mao Tse-Tung’s quote, “Women hold up half the sky.”
Each diptych juxtaposes the public and private self. Quotes on their bodies were spoken by or about each SKyGiRL.
MAZU (960-987 AD): Chinese sea goddess and protector of fishermen. She was a human, later deified. Myth states that she never cried as a child.
PAN YULIANG (1895-1977): Visionary painter, painted 4000+ works, mostly nudes of women of color, which was scandalous. Despite winning top awards, she was stigmatized her whole life in China as an orphan and ex-prostitute.
CHERYL SONG (1957-Present): First & only Chinese American on “Soul Train.” Raised in Crenshaw, LA, she later choreographed for Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and the Commodores.
LADY QIGUAN (551-479 BCE): Ex-wife of philosopher Confucius. Little is known about Lady Qiguan, but she knew the man behind the (unmet) ideals influencing Chinese culture.
SISTER PING (1949-2014): Mastermind of one of the largest human smuggling rings of all time. Assumed by feds as “a little old lady,” she amassed $40M over 10 years via a complex network across Asia, Africa, & South America.
kellytsai.com




