︎
Siyi/Colorado
8.5 x 11 inches and 8 x 10.5 inches
oil, ink, and shellac on paper
2020

“I went into grad school last fall with investments in the idea of what painting was. A painting is supposed to have a certain material sumptuousness and a certain level of production value. Your studies are just studies, and nobody needs to see them. Unmoored by the newness of my surroundings, I held fast to this idea and made two of the least adventurous paintings I’ve made in recent memory. With the benefit of a little distance, I think I see what people around me saw—that maybe the work was already happening in the modesty of my preparatory drawings and sketches. I’m happy to present these works as the work instead, and to reflect on how much can be lost by booting the process to the periphery.”

Katherine Du, born in Boulder, Colorado, investigates the dissonances in diasporic identity through archives of personal and collective experience. She is currently an MFA candidate in painting at Yale School of Art, received her BA in Studio Art from Wesleyan University, and attended Harvard Graduate School of Design.



Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market neighborhood in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

Three Fold recognizes, supports, and advocates for the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and for those who were forcibly removed from their Homelands. We operate on occupied territories called Waawiiyaataanong, named by the Anishinaabeg and including the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Bodewatomi (Potawatomi) peoples. We hold to commit to Indigenous communities in Waawiiyaataanong, their elders, both past and present, and future generations.