MOSAIC

Real name: Lorelei Kim
Occupation: art student at Columbia and an indie snob at Roadrunner Records
Identity: Generally unknown, but very much an obvious mutant
Legal status: Citizen of the U.S. with no criminal record. 'cept for a few parking tickets. And a couple speeding tickets...
Other aliases: Lori, Mosaic
Place of birth: Los Angeles, CA
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: Kinkela-keil Kim (mother), Myong-sik Kim (father), James Kim (brother, deceased)
Group affiliation: None
Base of operations: New York City
First appearance: March, 2003
History:

Lorelei Kim was born in Los Angeles. Her parents owned an imports clothing store in downtown LA, and Lorelei used to spend a good deal of her time examing the patterns and fabric and bright colors on the merchandise. At the suggestion of one of her mother's employee's daughter, Lorelei and her brother James were trained in yoga from age 5, and Lorelei still practices yoga today.

When Lori was 7, the race riots broke out in LA and her parents store was trashed. In addition to the financial losses, James was murdered by rioters while trying to give a friend a ride home. Lorelei was traumatised by the murder, and felt a sort of self-hatred because of her race. She wished she were any other ethnicity but Asian. She was sick of her parents not being able to pronounce her American name and the Korean lunches her mother made for her to take to school and how whenever she got a good grade in school, someone would go "Oh, that's because you're Asian." This left her miserable until she met Shari Chang, a Chinese girl who published various zines and wrote for different independent publications. Lori started to make drawings for these publications, and Shari suggested that Lori study art at school. Shari eventually convinced Lorelei that maybe being a little different isn't so bad after all.

Then one day, Lori's skin started to change colors. At first it was faint and not noticeable unless you really looked hard. For a time, she managed to cover it up with makeup and gloves and sweaters. But gradually it became more and more apparent. Eventually Lorelei was taken to the hospital, but they couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. She went through all sorts of tests and was dragged all over the west coast to different specialists and even went through an operation, but no one could find out what was wrong with her. At Lori's pleading, she went back to school and was placed in an advanced art class. Some of her fellow students called her Mosaic because of her powers.

During her junior year of high school, the Symposium happened. This was a truly significant day for Lori because she realized that she's not sick, she's not going to die soon, she's not a freak or an alien from outer space. She's just different. A mutant. Lori learned to embrace this difference instead of hating it, like she once did when she learned to accept being Korean. Lori started writing a few articles and essays on being a mutant in Shari's zines under the name Mosaic.

For her senior project in the art program Lori was enrolled in, she did a series of self-portrait photographs where she arranged her skin pigments to imitate famous artists such as Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian and Andy Warhol. She even imitated a few pop culture icons, like David Bowie and KISS. In her artistic statement she said: " think much of art is a tribute to things the artist finds beautiful or interesting. I just see the human body as one more way of reflecting the beauty in this world. Oscar Wilde once said that only the most shallow people don't judge by appearances, and that definitely applies to me in more ways than one."

Lorelei recieved a hefty scholarship for Columbia and is currently living in the dorms. This is the beginning of her first semester at Columbia University, because she chose to take the fall semester off to work and save money. She also works a few shifts a week at Roadrunner Records.