Pao Houa Her

Pao Houa Her's first major monograph, My Grandfather Turned into a Tiger... and Other Illusions, explores the fundamental concepts of home and belonging: illusion, desire, and loss. Her's work draws inspiration from a myriad of sources: apocryphal family tales; portraits of the artist's community and self; and reimagined landscapes, with Minnesota and Northern California standing in for Laos. The work invokes a compelling and personal cosmology grounded in the traditions and contemporary metaphors of the Hmong diasporic community. My Grandfather Turned into a Tiger brings together four of the artist's major series, including the eponymous body of work that reimagines her family's history before leaving Laos. Other work deals with a scandal within the Hmong community in which hundreds of elders were swindled as part of a fraudulent investment scheme built around the promise of a new Hmong homeland. In another series, tonally rich black-and-white still lifes of silk flowers collected by her mother are presented alongside images of flowers that adorn the digitally manipulated, hyper-colored popular backdrops used in Hmong photo studios and on dating apps. This beautifully designed monograph showcases Her's keen eye on the line between ersatz and authenticity; as the artist has stated, photography is "a truth if you want it to be a truth." My Grandfather Turned into a Tiger is the result of the Next Step Award, a partnership between Aperture and Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, in collaboration with the 7|G Foundation.