Cynthia Tom’s lyrical surrealism creates a world where the feminine is honored and gives us permission to construct our own identity. Roger T. Lee, MHS San Francisco Arts Commission Chinatown Community
Cynthia Tom, a community arts practitioner for over 35 years, recently earned both the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and YouthSpeaks(CA Arts Council) LEGACY Artist Awards. Serving as AAWAA Board president for nearly a decade, she founded A PLACE OF HER OWN, an arts-based healing program dedicated to addressing ancestral trauma patterns. Cynthia's contributions are in the collections of the Smithsonian Archives - “What is Feminist Art?” and the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives.
Painting, Found Objects, mixed media, installation, curatorial projects, lectures, workshops, non-traditional cultural heritage.
Themes: Ancestral exploration, Feminism, Healing, Spirituality, Xero Waste art, Social Justice. “My paintings are visual meditations, engaging myself and viewers to challenge our status quo. We can use art to imagine a world where we are empowered, kindness and wonder are commonplace, and curiosity and mistakes are encouraged.
"Cynthia Tom, an esteemed Asian American visual artist and award winning community arts practitioner with over 35 years of dedication, expresses her vision through surrealist paintings, mixed-media installations, impactful curatorial exhibitions and community arts social justice as healing projects. Through her work, she weaves together cultural roots, intuition, and empathy, offering fresh perspectives and possibilities for women, Asian Pacific Americans, and communities of color.
She is the founding director of A PLACE OF HER OWN, an arts-based healing program. Her mission resonates with cultural sensitivity and a commitment to healing generational patterns of trauma. PLACE provides artistic tools and a supportive community, recognizing that empowering women with a space, a transformative path, and creative tools is foundational for healing through the arts. She believes this process not only nurtures self-agency but becomes the bedrock for growing feminine leadership and fostering authentic community equity. It is a journey of healing, empowerment, and transformation through the expressive power of the arts.
Aug 2022 The de Young/Legion of Honor Museums of SF present:
Cynthia Tom. Haute Couture, Cultural Heritage, and Ancestral Healing as art mediums
