Trained in ceramics, Datchuk’s work explores her Asian heritage and specifically connects to Chinese blue-and-white porcelain traditions. Blue and White Bowl is part of the artist’s series Dark and Lovely, which explores the role of hair in identity. Datchuk states, “Hairs are tiny threads that link us to our past and present stories. These delicate strands have the power to identify us to the world, and this world can make assumptions about us based on its shape, color, and condition. Hair is contradictory; it is desirable or disgusting, pure or processed, innocent or sinful, an afterthought or a crowning glory. It is an extension of the body that grows in the womb before birth, and in the coffin after death, and the rate or length of growth is beyond our control. In Dark and Lovely, my focus is the emotive power of domestic objects and rituals that fix, organize, soothe, and beautify our hair – our lives.”

“Rare in today’s contemporary art world is an artist who is as focused on mastering their material, and the technical skills involved in their medium, as they are in exploring complex conceptual ideas and research that also works to push social and political boundaries. Jennifer Ling Datchuk is a triple threat in that way, consistently aware of how she utilizes these three avenues to speak her mind and make conversations happen through artwork that varies from her training in porcelain to performance and digital documentation.” - Wackenhut, Céleste, Jennifer Ling Datchuk: Half, F&M Projects, 2019.

“In September 2014, I started the process of turning my hair into a blue and white bowl. I wanted to turn part of my body
into an object. In collaboration with hairstylist Melody Cuellar, we cut about 12 inches of my long and straight dark brown
hair off and in stages shaved, cut, shaped, and bleached my hair to a white blonde. After the perfect bowl shape was achieved, I cut paper stencils of traditional Chinese symbols to adorn my hair. Using a blue hair dye spray purchased from a beauty supply store, we were able to spray cobalt blue color through the stencil to create my blue and white bowl cut."

“The bowl haircut is what I consider a rite of passage for all Asian children. We were all the victims of our mother's at
home haircuts that resembled the shape of a rice bowl atop our heads. It is a non gender specific hairstyle but easily
recognized by Asians.” - Jennifer Ling Datchuk