Jade Yumang: Next Door, Around the Corner, Inside the Bathhouse, By the Sea and Back

Next Door, Around the Corner, Inside the Bathhouse, By the Sea and Back explores the mutable and unfixed aspects of diasporic identity. Queering the logic of linear historical analysis, artist Jade Yumang examines two disparate moments where cultural identity has been shaped and expressed in relation and opposition to dominant cultural paradigms: the evolution of filet lace in the Philippines and that of 90s-era gay porn-star Brandon Lee’s Asian-American “boy-next-door” persona.  

Filet lace is produced by embroidering squares on an openwork grid to create images and patterns; typical motifs depict floral, geometric, religious, mythological, and pastoral subjects. Spanish colonists brought this technique to the Philippines in the 16^th century, also introducing pineapple cultivars to the islands. Over time, a hybrid, uniquely Philippine textile tradition developed, utilizing pineapple leaf fibres to produce sheer, luxurious piña cloth, often inset with filet lacework. During the American occupation, filet lace textiles became a popular souvenir for soldiers to send home; in turn, craftspeople developed and modified designs to reflect American consumer tastes. 

Working within the formal constraints of the gridded net, Yumang replicates images of Jon Enriquez, the Filipino-American porn star who shares a stage name with martial artist and film star Bruce Lee’s actor son, Brandon. Though Lee’s first films were for Asian niche markets, he quickly crossed over into the mainstream gay porn scene. A handsome, masculine top with a California Valley accent, Lee became famous playing what queer film theorist Richard Fung refers to as “boyfriend material” roles that subverted fetishistic and essentialist tropes.

Interspersed within Yumang’s lacy portraits of Lee are soft, amorphous textile sculptures, derived from the sex scenes in Lee’s films, supported by bamboo frames. Their attenuated limbs and complex configurations stretch across the gallery, suggesting a kind of rupture or spilling-forth—of bodies, identities, and desires that cannot, or will not, adhere to structural and material orthodoxies.  

Header Image: Jade Yumang, Non-Verbal Flirtations (detail), 2024, discharged dye, reactive dye, cotton, sublimation dye, mercerized cotton yarn, fiberfill, cotton piping cord, aluminum wire, and bamboo. Image: courtesy of the artist.