A Celebration (2024)

JULY 1-31, 2025
Rinconada Library, Palo Alto, CA

Born in 1990, Taiwanese artist Jamie-May Minjie belongs to a generation that was often named before it could name itself. A Celebration (2024) reclaims the labels society placed on millennials. This body of work speaks to the assertion that, in embracing the self, they are discovering a path toward healing.

Jamie-May’s practice began with the act of painting as emotional release, an intuitive language forged from grief, dislocation, and the unspoken. Over time, these abstract gestures evolved into a deeper inquiry into identity, self-narration, and the transcendence thereof. While her earlier works focused on catharsis, the later series since 2022 pivots toward themes of clarity.

A Celebration (2024) was created during a transitional year in Taipei, when the artist had returned from California and took a break from her professional trajectory. While working full-time as a program manager, she painted in the margins of her day. In Taipei’s humid quiet, she reconsidered what it means to build a life of meaning, care, and autonomy.

This contemplative series reflects on the spirit of the era: its turbulence, repetition, and quiet perseverance. Drawing from cycles of personal failure and renewal, the artist charts a familiar yet evolving journey, where past tumorous lows form the very peaks from which new perspectives emerge. The work suggests that beauty is not despite the struggle, but born from it.

In this series, Jamie-May reflects on a culture that turned inward. Self-love became a tool for unlearning: “We (millennials) call ourselves ceos (small caps) while running after awakening, breaking that chain of identification, and shaking off the separation to be in the One. We practice self‑care and self‑love, learning slowly how to stand on our own. Along the way, we work to lift the weight of guilt around pleasure, addressing generational wounds as we open ourselves to freedom. We then blur the ‘I’ by removing its capitalization and retreat to where things are decentralized. We document ourselves, publish ourselves, incorporate ourselves, and celebrate ourselves.”

Through a blend of existential inquiry and poetic introspection, the series explores the idea of life not as something actively controlled, but as an unfolding spectacle. The artist proposes that the self exists simultaneously as participant and observer, seated in the "stimulation seat," watching life crash forward like waves against the face. In this view, existence is not a performance we direct, but a prewritten script in which we find ourselves cast. Each misstep and failure, rather than detracting, intensifies the narrative arc of becoming. A Celebration (2024) suggests that to live a human life is to be woven into a continuous process: fluid, cinematic, and perpetually unfolding.

Inquiry

For inquiries or commissions, please feel free to email me at her@jamiemayminjie.com.

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A Celebration (2024)