Solace in Painting: Reflecting on a Tumultuous Century

Nature in our Environment Mask Series #3 2021 48 x 80 in. Acrylic and found objects on canvas Estate of the artist, Orange County, California

The scholarly catalogue published by SCALA for Solace in Painting exhibition has been awarded "2025 Outstanding Catalog Produced by a University or College Department" by the Midwest Art History Society at the MAHS annual conference in April 2025 in Denver.

In this project, Dr. Fletcher Coleman, Assistant Professor of Art History and Museum Studies raises awareness about the artwork of conflicted artists of the Asian diaspora who never produced overt “conflict art” but were brought together by Coleman in this thoughtful traveling exhibition because of their unusual approaches to painting shared experiences of conflict in Asia. The show featured three little-researched diasporic painters — Chao Shao-an (Hong Kong,1905-1998), Keisho Okayama (Japanese American,1934-2018), and Ann Phong (Vietnamese American, 1957-) whose lives were fundamentally shaped by major conflicts of the twentieth century who reflected on their circumstances through oblique and innovative methods.