Sunday 18 December 2016

Li Wenmin

11 December - 8 January 2017      Contemplative Shadow



"what you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow."
 



Li Wenmin. Contemplative Shadow. 2016. Enamel paint, plastic, paper and light installation.


Li Wenmin's art is centered on experiences and emotions of life through her distinctly poetic and imaginative sensibility towards cultural and social concerns through her mark-making process. 

Born in China, and currently lives and works in Sydney, it was the confrontation with issues of unrest arising from cultural and social differences in her new country that inspired her expression.  It is an ongoing search towards understanding of tradition in fluctuating contexts.

Li's interest in shadows has been a very important element in her art practice for many years. She often wonders about how much we know of the world and its shadows; or, ourselves and our shadows, whether 'shadow' balances our egos in life. 


Inspired by Chinese traditional art, paper-cut and shadow puppetry, Li has created a world in Contemplative Shadows that blurs boundaries through images of revealing and concealing, presenting and withdrawing, capturing the complex world we live in.  Similarly, Contemplative Shadows changes with the changing light throughout the day in the interplay of sunlight, artificial light and darkness, offering unexpected poetic emotion and aesthetics to the passersby.

Li's work has been exhibited internationally in Australia, UK, Japan, China, South Korea and Hong Kong since 1997. She has also presented her work at international conferences.   Li lectures at UNSW Art and Design, Sydney. Her work is now represented by Flinders Street Gallery.

Li Wenmin will be showing collaborative work with her father at Flinders Street Gallery in February 2017.

Li Wenmin, December 2016




Li Wenmin has used shadow as the focus of this work, as the tangible we can 'see' of ourselves, a metaphor of our limitation in self knowledge.  It is also the vehicle Wenmin uses to express the  'complexity' to our reality,  'life'.  This complexity is captured by the change of the installation throughout the day as natural light changes, and the artificial light emerges as the sun sets.  This change also embodies the shifts of emotions and thoughts, a condition that is intrinsic in being human.

For some time now, Li has also used bird to symbolise her life as a migrant. The shadow of the bird, not very clear in these images, sits on a lotus leave, a symbol of asian culture.  This life changing event has added a layer to the complexity that comes with displacement and living among differences.  The falling shadow figure appears to be reaching for the bird perched on the lotus leaf.  Perhaps it is the desire to bring into harmony her culture of birth with that of adopted country.

Li's work has transported timeless beauty of traditional Chinese painting sensibilities onto the street of Botany Road.  The use of Chinese art and craft of paper cuts and shadow puppetry has converted the Slot window gallery space into a large light box, a Chinese lantern with changing images.

Anie Nheu 
18/12/2016


 

Sunday 13 November 2016

Charles Cooper & Pia Larsen




6 November - 10 December      Flag Wavering

 

Pia Larsen and Charles Cooper have assembled an exhibition of nine Sydney artists meditating on the national symbol of the U.S.A and what underlies the American Project at the moment of that country’s cyclic rebirth, the Presidential election. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pia Larsen. Welcome & Last Drinks.  

Paper, bottles, gouache, digital prints, 

watercolour & ink. Dimensions variable

Below: Charles Cooper. Old Glory. Watercolour 

on paper. 18 x 26cm



Assemblage of Flag Wavering.
  


Charles Cooper. Old Glory. Watercolour on paper. 18 x 26cm 

Pia Larsen. Welcome & Last Drinks. Paper, bottles, gouache, digital prints, watercolour & ink. Dimensions variable

Margaret Roberts. 50 black stars and half a Strzeminski painting. Tulle + floor tape. 75 x 35cm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole Ellis 

Faded and Down Home 1 & 2

Cotton on wood

loose cotton pieces. 

241cm x 2.5cm


 

Left: Frank Littler. Flags of perpetual war 1, 2 & 3. Oil paint on canvas paper. 30 x 42cm & 28 x 36cm.  Right: Lynne Eastaway. Fold. Acrylic paint on Belgian linen. 13 x 18 x 8cm.





Wendy Murray. GIANTS & DODGERS (& I’m not talking sport). Acrylic monoprint (serigraph) from letterpress positive set at Hamilton Ink Spot. 76 x 51cm/ installation variable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Twigg. Stars & Stripes. 

 Enamel paint on timber construction

found objects. 195 x 31 x 12cm



 

 

Maryanne Coutts. Black News/White News: Stars & Stripes. Watercolour + gouache on paper. 31 x 31cm.  

Pia Larsen's bottles on the lower right

 

 

 


Monday 24 October 2016

Jack Frawley

22 October - 6 November      Let Slip the Dogs of War











Jack Frawley. Let Slip the Dogs of War, 2016.







 

Friday 16 September 2016

Yiwon Park

11 September - 13th October           Story of Story

 


Yiwon Park. Black Swan Story, 2015. Ink, gouache on paper board.


My work explores the spiritual, myths, culture and hybridity often in relation to my cultural diaspora. Within my work I draw on qualities of the absurd and the ambiguous to investigate various archetypal forms. Through this process my art practice explores qualities located around the spiritual and the nomadic, particularly in relation to questions of cultural dislocation. Framed within a multi-disciplinary practice, I address aspects of our psychic and emotional condition through a poetic sensibility, often with theatrical elements in visceral effect.

Yiwon Park




Yiwon Park. Swan Story, 2015. Gouache, ink on paper.
It was said that the magic of poetry resides in what it is, and not in grappling with the meaning it conveys.  In most part, this can apply to the experience of visual art. 

Yiwon's work has a strong narrative, and it is tempting to assign meaning to these images.  They are derived using familiar archetype symbols that are steep in the human psyche.  These symbols have appeared widely in literature and the visual arts in the Western culture. 


Yiwon Park. In the swamp, 2015. Gouache, ink on paper board.




However, Yiwon's use of archetype symbols is not solely used for the purpose of generating narratives.  It is also used to destroy the narratives these symbols have generated through the ages from which they have attained their meaning and inhabit the cultural psyche.   In effect, these works trace the journey in the making of the new narrative, and hence the title of this installation, Story of  Story.

There is violence running through these images, and it is not only done through dismembered, wounded bodies.  The violence is also in the process generating new narratives through destroying the old.

Still, poetry remains with these works.  Yiwon's choice of the swan as the archetype symbol is mysterious, but also the making of these images have a coherent quality in themselves.    
Yiwon Park. Swan Story, 2015.
This is due in part to Yiwon's mark making. The created images hold us captive in wonder, not giving away its meaning.  

With her mark making, Yiwon balances immediacy and casual deliberation in the rendering of these images, giving them emotional effect that is raw and evocative.


 
 
 
Yiwon Park. Swan Story, 2015.



























These drawings are working pieces for the making of a moving image titled, Mythical Truth: Black Swan Story.  Click on the title to see the animation.

Yiwon Park will be holding a solo exhibition in Seoul at Salon Artertain  from 23th September - 11th October.


Anie Nheu
caretaker of Slot