Even as a frustrated five-year-old, Northfield Mount Hermon senior Bonnie Keren He turned to art as an outlet for her emotions.
After an argument with her mother, she scribbled a huge red heart, ripped it in half and stuck it to her bedroom door.
In that early memory, He drew “to show that I [was] heartbroken,” she recalls. Now, her art unravels emotions that are harder to name, from the complex feelings around her Asian American identity to the fierce magnitude of motherly love.
“Every child would say they grew up drawing sometime in their life,” said He, now 17, at the Northfield Mount Hermon campus. “I just never knew it would become one of the reasons that makes me well recognized.”
She describes the “big red heart” from a bench in the Rhodes Art Center, within earshot of the school’s student art exhibit. There, her sculpture — a rainbow of beads blooming from her recreation of a Hanfu, the traditional clothing of the Han people in China — hangs in the center of the room.
This spring show did not mark He’s exhibit debut.
At just 12 years old, she showcased her work in her first solo art exhibit in Long Island. Her artwork now hangs at the United States Capitol, where her painting distills a lockdown drill that left her and her friends squished inside a closet. The painting traveled to D.C. after she won the Congressional Art Competition for the Sixth District of New York last spring.
Most recently, He’s self-portraits across countless mediums filled the walls of Flushing Town Hall in a solo exhibit that drew Asian American activists, community leaders, artists and teachers. Among the crowd was Jimmy Meng, father of U.S. Rep. Grace Meng. The congresswoman awarded He a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for her work in April.
The young artist donated $1,830 of the money she raised at the exhibit to Twice As Smart, an after-school program in Greenfield for “at-risk” children, according to the organization’s website.
“It’s turning art into a form of inspiring others, beyond just the grand gallery, but giving them a hope that art can be something more than just a passion,” He said.
Comparing her second solo exhibit to her first, she adds, “I wanted to do one that felt more like home and spread awareness for the Asian American community.”
For He, “home” can refer to Flushing or to Suzhou — a city located a half-hour bullet train ride from Shanghai, China, that is covered with gardens, split by canals and rooted in a long history of silkmaking.
During family dinners in Suzhou, He heard lessons about continuing her family’s “legacy” of either artistry or business success from her oldest relatives.
Her grandfather, Jiang Yong Xiang, is a well-known name in China for his classic Chinese calligraphy. He’s aunt writes ancient Chinese calligraphy with characters from “before Mandarin turned into Mandarin today.” Another aunt teaches art, and an uncle’s oil paintings secured him a studio in China.
As for a career in business — which her parents, who have thrived in the industry, encouraged her to pursue — she thought, “Hell, no.” Instead, she dedicated late nights in middle school to refining her work.
“I was a pretty bad student. I would not do my homework, and I would just draw from like 5 to 3 in the morning, and then wake up at 8, and then go to school and repeat,” He recalled. “I was very desperate to be recognized when I was in middle school, because it was hard to make friends.”
Before long, the recognition came. In seventh grade, she won the United States Constitution Day Poster Design Contest. As her passion for art intensified, her identity at school wrapped itself around her art and its accolades. At Northfield Mount Hermon, classmates call her “silent but deadly.”
“I don’t talk in art classes apparently, but then I make deadly artwork,” He said. “It’s weird because the people that are doing skydiving, or high jumps, or breaking Guinness World Records, or people in our school that are going to Harvard — they’re scared of me drawing. I think it shows art shouldn’t be underestimated.”
The 17-year-old speaks with a straight face, intention in each word — a habit that has led classmates to believe she has a “cold exterior.”
To that, she said, “Art is my safe space. I smile on the canvas — all of my emotions are dispersed in the works.”
“I feel the most connected with my work when it’s about myself,” He continued. With a laugh, she added, “If I ever become the new Van Gogh, I want people to know what I look like.”
She titled her exhibit in Flushing “Inna Beauti,” a twist on “inner beauty” that starts and ends with the letter “I” on purpose.
Self-portraits across countless mediums and artistic styles caught the eyes of visitors at the April exhibit, ranging from a realistic painting of a FaceTime call between He and her friend, to a more two-dimensional portrait of herself peering through a rip in a background filled with the fog and cool tones of traditional Chinese ink paintings.
The centerpiece of the gallery is more abstract: a self-portrait featuring electric-purple layered shadows and an ambiguous expression that led visitors to dub the piece He’s Mona Lisa.
The smoky self-portrait started as an assignment at Northfield Mount Hermon to create a piece using only one color. Her first thought was red, orange or yellow.
“But then, I was like, ‘I need to make artwork that can make me feel something,'” He remembered.
She turned to her favorite color, looked up its symbolism and read the word “loneliness.”
“It’s the first time that I was being truthful to myself while creating art. A lot of times, I make art to try to satisfy the needs or tastes of others. I wanted people to know my art, and I didn’t want people to walk out and be like, ‘Oh my God, her art just made me feel like my day is ruined,'” He said. “But art is my outlet, and sometimes I need to let out the parts that are bothering me.”
As He creates, she straddles the two cultures she grew up between — Chinese culture’s emphasis on history, technique and tradition, and the American obsession with advancement — all while keeping her family’s legacy of artistry in the back of her mind.
“I’ve been finding ways of, how can I both preserve the legacy but also have my own brand?” He said.
But beyond the emotions charging He’s works, “My brand is that I have no brand,” she states.
“I think it’s not healthy for me to constantly seclude myself into like, ‘I have to only make this, I have to only make that,'” the young artist explained. “All of the works I make now are experiments for my future.”
While He’s artwork unfurls her inner life, her dancing does the opposite. On the Northfield Mount Hermon stage, she often inhabits the rambunctious roles of villains, killers or sassy bullies.
“I like the idea of transforming into a completely different self. A lot of people at school would think that I’m a completely different person when I am on stage,” He said. “It’s always fun to have an alter ego.”
Last spring, He choreographed a dance that combined her two passions. The dancers wore white clothing, smearing paint on their bodies as they moved through the music.
“Art, performing arts — they can go anywhere, they’re not absolute,” He said. “I like the free form of it.”
He, however, does not like math and science. With her deadpan humor, the artist said she often tells her teachers, “My left brain is dead. My right brain is so big that it squeezes out the capacity for my left brain to live.”
Yet, despite the countless hours spent in the school’s art studios, 43 Scholastic Awards, and multiple solo exhibits, He admits she has never once thought, “I love art.” The relationship is bittersweet, and she likes it that way.
“Being able to feel so many emotions about my work is what allows me to be multimedia-like. If I’m only an artist that’s drawing about happiness, that’s also a way to go, but I don’t think it resonates with me that much,” He said. “It is a passion. If the world was just fair and there was no pressure about economy, I would say I want to draw.”
Wearing her “go-to art studio slippers,” she set off to work on a ceramic sculpture before dinner.
