2020
mural
acrylic on panel
Asian Art Museum
Lawrence and Gorretti Lui Hyde Street Art Wall

Museum text:
Pattern Recognition’s speech bubbles shout out the names of local Asian American artists as a playful way to reconcile historical omissions. Comic-book speech bubbles exclaim RUTH ASAWA! BERNICE BING! CARLOS VILLA! and the names of six other artists who lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. These familiar cartoon graphics give voice to Wofford’s mural, which embeds recognizable Asian decorative patterns within a festive 1980s design vocabulary to celebrate Asian American immigrant histories and cultures.

For the patterned background, Wofford chose motifs found in works in the museum collection as well as traditional designs drawn from Asian cultures represented in the surrounding communities. By showcasing the cultures of local immigrant communities and home-grown artists with friendly graphics and familiar patterns, Wofford, a San Francisco–based Filipina American artist and educator, aims to welcome the museum’s neighbors, to let them know that this is a place where they belong.