Herrett Forum Distinguished Speaker Series Presents:
Through large-scale watercolor portraits and collaborative storytelling, Chinese-born, Idaho-based artist Yidan Guo brings forward the individual lives of immigrant and refugee women—women too often reduced to labels or left out of public memory. Developed through consent-based interviews, photography, and sustained relationships, her ongoing project The Souls of Resilience explores how migration reshapes identity, language, work, family, cultural memory, and the search for belonging.
In the presentation, Guo will share the personal and artistic journey behind the project, including her own experience of rebuilding a life in the United States after immigrating from China in 2013. She will discuss how she builds trust with participants and approaches their stories with consent, care, and respect, and how portraiture can create space for dignity, complexity, and connection without reducing a life to a simple story of suffering or triumph. A one-day display of selected works from the project will accompany the presentation in the Rick Allen Room. The program will conclude with audience questions and conversation.
Guo holds an MFA from Idaho State University, an MPhil in Aesthetics from Renmin University of China, and a degree in painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. She is a partnering artist with the Idaho Museum of International Diaspora (IMID) and a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, Watercolor USA Honor Society, and Northwest Watercolor Society. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions across China and the United States and has received numerous awards in national and international juried exhibitions.
In the presentation, Guo will share the personal and artistic journey behind the project, including her own experience of rebuilding a life in the United States after immigrating from China in 2013. She will discuss how she builds trust with participants and approaches their stories with consent, care, and respect, and how portraiture can create space for dignity, complexity, and connection without reducing a life to a simple story of suffering or triumph. A one-day display of selected works from the project will accompany the presentation in the Rick Allen Room. The program will conclude with audience questions and conversation.
Time & Location
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Cost: Free
Doors open: 6 p.m.
Presentation starts: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Rick Allen Room in the Herrett Center, Twin Falls, ID
Presenter
Yidan Guo is a Chinese-born, Idaho-based artist and educator whose work explores migration, displacement, identity, language, memory, and belonging through watercolor portraiture, pastel, artist books, Chinese calligraphy, and installation. Her own experience of leaving a university teaching career in China and rebuilding her life in the United States after immigrating in 2013 deeply informs her practice. Over the past six years, she has developed The Souls of Resilience with immigrant and refugee women through interviews, photography, portraiture, and collaborative storytelling.Guo holds an MFA from Idaho State University, an MPhil in Aesthetics from Renmin University of China, and a degree in painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. She is a partnering artist with the Idaho Museum of International Diaspora (IMID) and a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, Watercolor USA Honor Society, and Northwest Watercolor Society. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions across China and the United States and has received numerous awards in national and international juried exhibitions.
