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Marilyn Henrion - Soft City

Mixed media works combine digitally altered photos with hand quilted fabric

Amazing result by mixing traditional needlework techniques with digitally manipulated photography and inkjet printing. These works beautifully reflect contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The presence of the hand stitching both animates the surfaces of the works and, at the same time, softens and humanizes the urban geometry by the irregular qualities of texture inherent in the materials and construction. 

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Grayson Perry - The Vanity of Small Differences 

Six large tapestries retells the story of the rise and demise of Tim Rakewell from A Rake's Progress  (1732 -33) by William Hogarth.

I love Grayson Perry’s signature laugh and his charisma! Extremely impressed by his Matching Pair Brexit vases 2017 but his tapestry works relate to my current practice, therefore having a closer look at them. 

Extensive research effort are evident in this set of works. It reminds me to put more effort in research before commencing art making.  His witty commentary on absurdities of modern lives are exemplary.  

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Nneka Jones - Activist artist 

Thought-provoking embroidery portraits of targeted girls of colour

Once you’ve seen these, you cannot forget them, they cut deep, so traumatic! The thread gives it body and substance;  the labour intensive hand embroidery suggests abuses and sufferings in our long history of racism and exploitation. Embroidery take the emotion to another level here. 

In My Modern Met's exclusive interview Jones said, “The subjects for my artwork are always carefully planned and researched before I create the actual work of art. I consider myself an activist artist, one who uses her art to communicate with viewers and demanding some kind of reaction, emotion, or conversation. Once I begin stitching this image, I begin telling a story. I always start with the eyes of the individual and work my way outward to develop the figure. This helps to remind me of why I am creating the piece and with each additional stitch and every hour that I spend working on the pieces, it is symbolic of the long hours, days, weeks, months, and years that these women and girls have had to endure pain and injustice.”

I wish these group of works include girls from other cultural backgrounds too. Focusing in victimising one racial group can easily provoke social tension, let’s not forget sexual abuse and social injustice are universal problems. Nevertheless these portraits successfully raised awareness on social and political issues without losing the aesthetic value. 

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Chiharu Shiota - Conceptually driven, intricately woven installations 

Shiota’s immersive installations are so engaging, yet performative but poetically suspend in silence at the same time!  She is one of my favourite artist. I should have put her in my post before Mr. Redfern’s suggestion.  She maps elu­sive sen­sa­tions of emo­tion and mem­o­ry by weav­ing tan­gi­ble objects – cloth­ing, musi­cal instru­ments, fur­ni­ture, let­ters, and even an incin­er­at­ed piano – into exten­sive, tan­gled webs cre­at­ed with hun­dreds of metres of del­i­cate thread. Through her works, she inspires meditation on lives and deaths, presence and future, and displacement and belonging.  

The authenticity and honesty of her works impacted me most, because the concepts and messages came out of her personal experience. The woven webs in her installations encapsulated feelings and meanings beyond words, just like sharing emotionally and intimately. There are lots of hand weaving in the process that represent intimacy too. Even seeing the installation through digital device, the human touch is not lost. A lesson for my practice here. 

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Eszter Bornemisza - The world of imaginary cartography in textile, newspaper and other found soft materials. 

When I was introduced to Bornemisza’s work, I am surprised by their similarity to my early embroidery works in form and materials. I have tried to make my translucent panels flat and neat like hers but ultimately decided to keep them loose and organic in shape.  While my subject matter is nature, her is urban map, it make sense that we choose different approach.  I normally use just cotton fibre in my lace like panels, I will try incorporating other soft materials, like the over-dyed newspaper in Bornemisza’s work, that become another layer of visual metaphor. 

As suggested by my lecturer Mr. Redfern, Bornemisza’s work look very much like abstracted information, to this I will add the likeness of matrix of the world wide web. Not a bad idea to try exploring the cyber world with abstract textile works.  

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Magdalena Abakanowicz - Pioneer of installation art  

Evocative textile sculptures of biomorphic forms, often displayed in groups.

In the 1960s, the artist found success with a radical set of tapestries that were unlike anything previously seen. Known as ‘Abakans’, these ambiguous organic  tapestries sculptures were roughly-woven, abstract tangles of sisal fibre, imposingly hung from the ceiling. They won her the Grand Prize at 1965’s São Paulo Biennial. Following her precedent, we started to see many contemporary fibre artists, like Chiharu Shiota and Joanna Vasconcelo, producing installation works. From the mid-1970s, Abakanowicz began to move away from weaving and started to use burlap and resin to construct her headless humanoid figures. 

Through sculpture, Abakanowicz expresses what she sees as the ineffable, dichotomous relationship between the individual and society. Her works do not seems to have absolute narratives or obvious commentaries but yet powerfully affective. It’s the combination of the fragility of fibre, vulnerability of the material, familiarity of textile, ambiguity of the forms, repetition of images and the melancholy of monochromatic structure that evoke humankind in general.  I will definitely give these approaches a go in my own practice. 

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Jin Young Yu - Transparent affective sculputures explore disparity between the outward and inward self. 

The technical aspect of the production is fascinating here. The emotions provoked by this transparent, hollow sculptures, however, are more profound and deeply affective!  Yu obviously chooses to work with transparent acrylic and glass due to their inability to protect privacy. Crystalline and hollow, Yu’s subjects float eerily like phantoms, solely identifiable by their clay masks. With heightened quietude, these opaque faces project outward a bottomless sadness, beckoning viewers to look upon them. The stoic faces with many appearing to hold back tears encourage emotional participation on the part of the viewers, and stimulate empathy, care and love.  

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Yuichi Ikehata - Fragment of Long Term Memory: studies the fragmentary nature of our memory

Japanese sculptor and photographer uses a mixture of physical materials (clay, wire and paper) with digital intervention to create a post-apocalyptic world. His art making process post another layer of meaning to our relationship with technology.  Starting with sculptural forms of human body made of wire, clay and paper, Ikehata then digitally adds realistic parts, such as skin, eyes, hair and nails. Are the memories co-created with the help of technology real or myth?  These post-apocalyptic works are disturbing but powerful; they provoke reflection of inner selves, searching for what’s lost, what’s real, what’s not, and look for the non-linear boundaries between real and virtual world. It is getting more difficult everyday as AI exert an ever increasing control over us. 

Ikehata says: “Many parts of our memories… are often forgotten, or difficult to recall. I retrieve those fragmented moments and reconstruct them as surreal images. I gather these misplaced memories from certain parts of our reality, and together they create a non-linear story, resonating with each other in my photographs.” https://www.ignant.com/2017/04/10/disturbing-works-of-yuichi-ikehata/

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D. W. Martin - Pairing Similarities 

Surreal sculptures juxtapose everyday objects with human anatomy.

I love how he plays with scale, tipping off the balance of scale lead me to question why this happens, what is our relation to objects that surround us. One of the advantages of visual art is its ability to capture that which is difficult to express in words. Such is the concept of objective chance, a key element of surrealism. 

“The primary tenet of objective chance is its celebration of unexpected relationships and surprising juxtapositions — the combining of disparate everyday objects to create a mystical new visual language. Think of Dali’s dripping clocks hanging from trees, or how Rene Magritte toyed with scale and superimposed elements such as fruits and fowl into otherwise usual spaces and scenes.” (https://surrealismtoday.com/pairing-similarities-d-w-martin-erie-art-museum).

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Linde Ivimey - Autobiographical sculptures made mostly out of animal bones

Another Australian contemporary artist makes affecting mystical sculptures that I love.  Ivimey mainly use cooked animal bones, hair, feathers, steel armature and fabric to fabricate her intricate sculptures. The technical aspects of her work provide great reference for my latest project in posthuman sculptures.  Bones represent physical strength through which the emotional and physical affects of her sculpted character emerge. She weaves chicken bones together as skin (or armour) for her self portraits to protect the soft delicate inner self. 

Although her sculptures can be macabre, it is not unfamiliar to us living in a broken world, they also have high aesthetic value.  I find them eerie but beautiful!  Similar to Piccinini’s way of making wonder with which love and empathy abound.  

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Patricia Piccinini - Surreal world that dissipate boundaries and bulld relationship and empathy between human and non-human, technology and nature. 

Piccinini’s alluring yet disquieting futurist universe, inhabited by hybrid mythical creatures is about relationships– with the environment, other animals, and our bodies.   What I love is her works are not didactic. The otherness of the transgenic creatures opens up spaces around ethical dilemmas that people can come in to add their own interpretation and meaning.   A lot of discourse around these things are so laden with value judgements and recriminations, it so paralysing and terrifying.  Piccinini’s bizarre creatures can be repulsive at first encounter but the relation they have with children or other human on the same stage gives the viewer sense of wonder -the magic that she induce understanding, empathy, care and love.  

The technical skills put into the fabrication are exemplary. Although Piccinini has the support of a team of technicians, she is still drafting the initial ideas with drawings. It’s good to see contemporary artist still making with her own hand, even though its just a part of the process. 

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Destiny Deacon - Adoption 1993-2000, light jet print from Polaroid

Conptemporary Indigenous art projects a political picture with dark kitsch humour.

How many layers of meaning have Deacon put in this low tech blurry Polaroid print! The old discarded black dolls found in thrift shop are meaningfully place in white cupcake patty pans and being served on a serving tray.  It is humorous but full of irony in the suggestion of shopping for black babies at orphanages, and indigenous babies are being served to the white people as fancy items.  This seemingly innocent work directly references the Stolen Generation.  The out stretching arms of the babies represent the trauma and helplessness experienced by the Aboriginal children who were forcefully removed from their family. 

Black humour cuts deep, this is the most important lesson I take from this work.  While I am making soft textile dolls as part of my posthuman project currently, the satirical black humour can be a useful tool in my thought process. 

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Fiona Foley - Witnessing to Silence 2004, installed on the door step of the Brisbane Magistrates' Court

Contemporary monument to massacres and violence against Aboriginal people in Queensland.

How brave was Foley to hide the historical implication behind this project by masking it with the subject of natural disaster: bush fire and flood, in order to get the commission approved through the planning and building processes! The work incorporates three elements: cast bronze lotus lilies that emerge from an ethereal mist, stainless steel columns embedded with ash in laminated glass panels, and etched place names in granite pavers. 

Through abstraction, the open space between the signifier and the signified gives Foley the opportunity to hide one narrative behind another. The ash embedded can be a sign of bushfire or burning in massacres; water can be a sign of flood or disposal of dead victims into waterways. 

Paving stones throughout the installation, available as a public walkway, are inscribed with place names like grave stones. These list the 94 sites of indigenous massacres since the settlement of Queensland. Alongside such potent historical horror is a sense of hope and reconcilation through the cluster of lotus in the centre of the installation.  I should refer to how signs and symbolic representation are used here in my next project. 

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Brook Andrew and Trent Walter - Standing by Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner 2016

A memorial to the Frontier Wars of Australia

Reconciliation can only happen when we know our true history, not ignoring it or hiding from it, and then move on constructively. This permanent public memorial/artwork, sitting near where two Aboriginal men were hanged publicly in 1842, serve as a bold move towards reconciliation, reminding the public of the forgotten colonial wars between Europeans and Aborigines. At the time the pair were dubbed blood-thirsty outlaws, but this memorial recognises their plight as freedom fighters resisting white settlement. Truth and justice are not as absolute as it seems on the surface. This memorial conjures public contemplation and understanding about inter-generational trauma and anger. I believe understanding is a crucial process in constructing equality and inclusivity. This can be the starting concept for my next project. 

I am very impressed by the abstraction in this permanent installation. Six bright coloured newspaper stand (behind the static bluestone swing), coated in colours from the Aboriginal and Australian flags: black, white, red, yellow and blue, represent the history of the indigenous people and the coloniser. News stands become metaphors of collective historical events and memories. The installation sits amongst indigenous medicine plants that are useful for regeneration and native to the landscape of Parperloihener clan (Cape Grim), Iarapuna (Bay of Fires), Woiworung and Boonwurrung of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne).

The static solid bluestone swing and tomb-like structure with the names Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner engraved on the side invites visitors to the site to sit, contemplate and reflect. This is another great testimony of the activated public space that Mara Holt Skov discussed in her TED talk, and Amy Spier’s argument on public art’s capability to generate good feelings is not the only measurable proof of success. Negative feelings can be channelled into powerful regenerative force through the intervention of art. However powerful as it, caution must be taken on the dignity and vulnerability of the perceivers, sometime negative feeling can feed destructive reactions instead of generating remedial or constructive moves. I am longing, but reluctant, to tackle social and political issues head-on in my art-making process. So afraid to cause more harm than good! May be it’s a good lesson here to have a honest narrative and support it with sign of hope and solidarity.

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Tony Albert - I am Visible, Canberra’s Enlighten Festival (March 2019).  

Black Lives Matters movement in Australia activated through the arts of contemporary Aboriginal artist Tony Albert.

The projection references Albert’s Brothers series, two pieces of which are included in the NGA’s collection: Brothers (New York Dreaming) (2015) and Brothers (Unalienable) (2015). 

After so many years of reconciliation efforts initiated down from the government to public institutes, social groups to individuals, not much progresses have been made around issues of neglected histories, identity, self-determination, hidden inequities and prejudiced assumptions about Aboriginality.  It is essential to try harder to engage public discourse and push for social/political reforms that tackle these issues collectively.  The projection weaved together a large collection of Albert’s work throughout his practice, it offers broad subjects for discussion and reflection. 

Hopefully open public discourse will lead to real actions towards a more inclusive and fare social political structure in the future.

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Laci Jordan - Activism in digital public space

Black Lives Matter Movement flooded social media platform recently. Artists like Laci Jordan advocating for non-violent civil protest against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against Black people. Works like hers activated the digital public space for social political justice. Drawing on her large Instagram following, Jordan’s contemporary black women portraits inspire strong young women to stand up against racism and social inequalities.  Art can inspire changes for the good.

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Eduardo Kobra – Social visual diary

Kobra’s colour rich, geometrical shaped realistic murals grasped my attention straight away while I surf the Instagram. He did so many huge murals and artworks around the world, it’s hard to see all of them physically, the Internet provide a public space where we can experience all his works in one place. Although the online experience will not be exactly the same as physical encounter, online experience serve the purpose of spreading the content and message around.

Kobra’s enchanting murals serve as a kind of social visual diary depicting lives-from historical heroes to contemporary artist to children in our neighbourhood.  The historical events registered on the background of the murals also review the social condition that trigger reflexive emotion on social issues.

I love the solidarity, care and love in his works! The lesson I can take from Kobra is how his signature style and colour palette project love and hope in our memories. And his skill in executing huge murals with such intensity is aspirational!