Ten Years to Sharpen a Sword: Lauren YS Featuring Makoto

Ten Years to Sharpen a Sword marks the first solo museum exhibition by internationally recognized artist Lauren YS, whose vibrant, high-energy murals and paintings create immersive worlds where ancestral memory and queer embodiments intertwine, often with hybrid beings that are part creature and inspired by East Asian mythology. With a title drawn from Jia Dao's Tang Dynasty poem The Swordsman, the exhibition features newly commissioned works premiering at USC Pacific Asia Museum, including a site-specific interior mural, paintings, sculptures, and lenticulars (images that shift as viewers move around them) created with longtime collaborator Makoto. The exhibition explores Lauren YS's richly imagined narratives of protective spirits, monsters, lovers, and tricksters, while examining identity, transformation, and the fluid boundaries of self and belonging. Earlier works provide context for the artist's evolving practice. "Lauren YS's work interprets Asian mythology, memory, identity, and contemporary life in personal and unexpected ways," said Sung-Hee Son, interdisciplinary artist and independent curator of the exhibition. "USC Pacific Asia Museum, in the heart of Pasadena—a gateway between USC, Southern California, and a global arts community—is the ideal setting for that exploration because it gives contemporary artists space to engage with the objects and histories that inform their work while connecting directly with the surrounding community."