My Work

My creative and art-making work

MA U2: Cheongsam Series #1 – oil and cold wax abstract

| elizarawlings

During one of my visits to Hong Kong some 30 years ago when my mother was still alive, she gave me four dresses as keepsakes – two hand tailor-made silk Cheongsams (traditional Chinese dress) from when she was a young woman and two evening dresses that she made herself for dinner balls that she went to with my father. One of the cheongsams was my favourite, it had a distinctive and memorable pattern. I remember very clearly that I used to open her wardrobe as a little girl to admire it and I was mesmerised by the pattern. Everything about it said ‘my mum’ to me. So I was very happy when she gave it to me to keep as it was very precious and had so much history.

Then in 2001 when I moved house (in Bristol, UK), I cleared lots of old things into a skip. As the skip was driven away, I remembered a small suitcase containing the precious dresses was accidentally thrown into the skip but it was too late. It was one of the things that I have regretted all these years.

That was some 22 years ago. Then earlier this year, I was clearing out the loft and found a box containing some old items, inside which was a plastic carrier bag contain the four dresses. It was as close to a miracle as I could image. I hadn’t thrown away those dresses after all! To find them again after all these years was an emotional moment for me.

Here is the distinctive Cheongsam that I adored. It is a traditional Chinese dress made with a contemporary western style abstract patterned fabric of the time (late 1960s). It is a good example of a piece of transcultural garment. It has some deep creases from being folded for so many years but I am unsure of how best to iron or care for it, so until I find out, I decided to refold it for safe keeping. Below are some photos I took before putting it away.

Front view
Back view
Close up of the Madarin collar design
Close up of the abstract pattern that fascinated me as a child
Close up of the details of hand made stitches along a seam

There is so much history to this interesting dress, its rich features and heritage make it very precious and can provide inspiration for my art making. However, I was unsure of what to do and where to start.

When I recently visited the Stuart Hall Library in London as part of my MA Fine Art course Low Residency at CSM, I saw the book called Fusionable Cheongsam. I was unable to spend too much time there because we were on a tight schedule for the day and I hope to return soon to have a good read of the book. However, I had seen enough to convince me that the Cheongsam could be a good focus for my art making. I decided to start with a painting.

METHOD

Photographs of various parts of the Cheongsam fabric pattern were taken and printed on an EPSON EcoTank ET2860 inkjet printer.

Images were selected to fully cover a 30×20 inch canvas board. Dispersion liquid was used to transfer the printed images onto the canvas and left to dry overnight.

The paper was rubbed off leaving the transferred image on the canvas. As expected, the process usually leaves blank patches as it had done here:

Where there were blank spaces, the outline of the abstract shapes were drawn in using a 0.2mm black fine liner pen.

Using the colour charts I prepared a few weeks ago, various colour shades were chosen for the top layer oil and cold wax painting. The oil and cold wax were mixed in 50/50 ratio.

Blocks of colour were painted onto the canvas. The approach was abstract and without pre-planning, I was just responding to the canvas. Towards the bottom centre area, I wanted to paint a dark red triangle, what came out was part of a mouth or lips. The lips led me to start painting an abstract face:

Once the top layer painting was completed, I started to scratch off the paint, firstly in the shape of a small cheongsam.

Then the paint was scraped off and the area cleaned with environmentally friendly solvent:

I liked the image and I then responded to it by making marks of several other cheongsams of various sizes. Bright red paint was used to depict the traditional Chinese buttons used on garments. Strips of Chinese calligraphy with the phrase ‘third space’ was layered onto the paint then pigment was sprinkled to add texture.

I felt troubled by the face, especially the dark eye, it looked too sinister. So I scraped off most of the dark eye to give it a kinder look.

Finished work below – Cheongsam #1. Oil and cold wax on canvas with image transfer. Size 20×30 in.

REFLECTIONS

What I am happy with:

– The colour palette

– The fabric pattern that came through

– The Cheongsam shaped mark making

– The little red buttons as a colour pop

– The inlaying of Chinese calligraphy

– Enjoyed working with oil and cold wax media

What I’m not happy with:

– The composition, the ‘lips’ accidentally appearing led me to subconsciously start creating a face-like composition. I’m not sure if it worked. When the ‘eye’ was completely filled in black, it became a strange and eerie creature. It was too distracting hence I scraped off most of the black to reduce the impact.

– Due to the strange face, it doesn’t sit comfortably with me which perhaps is a good thing. Better than being forgettable.

Other thoughts:

– I wanted to use the cheongsam series to help me to delve into my thoughts about my family, especially my mother, our relationship and my heritage. I am not sure if I achieved this in just this painting because I was overly focusing on making the work and trying to get the composition right. But I am keen to continue the Cheongsam series and feel that I am at the beginning of something.

– I am intrigued by the history of the Cheongsam and want to find out more.

– The fact that such a traditional Chinese garment of my mother’s was made with a western style abstract pattern was intriguing – this is what the Third Space is about and I have accidentally stumbled upon this excellent example – my mother, a Chinese woman from colonised Hong Kong, chose this dress with this fabric. I have not fully processed this finding yet, but I wanted to acknowledge it here and will slowly delve into what I think and how I feel about this.

LEARNING

– Various symbols have emerged from this piece. I am inspired by Fiona Rae’s work where she often uses playful symbols. I can try a playful approach with e.g. lips or butterflies. The collars of the Cheongsam remind me of butterflies, they could be turned into a signature symbol that I use in my work.

– Other symbols such as the distinctive buttons that are used in Cheongsam and traditional Chinese garments, I loved playing with them when I was a child – I can investigate those further.

– I am intrigued by the Cheongsam and I want to research about its history and other related art such as in the book ‘Fusion of Cheongsam’ to get inspiration for making.

– As I was painting, I felt that I was trying too hard especially in the composition of the oil and cold wax layer. It felt deliberate rather than a free response to the canvas. I could use my sketchbook more to plan composition for my work, do more quick trial and error exploration.

NEXT STEPS

– Continue the Cheongsam exploration because I feel excited by the subject – research into its history and related art to get inspiration.

– Keep making, do some informal work. Not every piece has to be a finished painting.

– Play in my sketchbook.

– Relax and enjoy the making process. Take time and don’t try too hard.

MA U2: Exploring aesthetics – Part 3 – Harbour

| elizarawlings

This piece of work was a continuation of my exploration of how to express the third space through aesthetics. It started with a digital collage in a similar way to the piece I did for the MA Interim Show in Part 2:

MA Y1 U1: Exploring Aesthetics – Part 2 – Painting on silk for MA Interim Show

However, after I started this piece, my thinking took me to reflecting on how I felt about my work in the third space so far. My thoughts are captured in this blog:

MA Y1 U1: The elusive Third Space – Reflections from MA interim show and feedback

Although this work did not start as the abstraction approach that I concluded on in my thinking, I have altered part of the image to be less illustrative and more suggestive as a start of this new exploration.

METHOD

A digital collage was created using Adobe Express comprising an image of present time Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, a row of colourful Victorian houses at Bristol Harbour and a traditional Chinese junk. The images were manipulated so that the buildings forming the skyline of the two harbours were combined forming a continuous shoreline with the HK Harbour image changed to a subtle but bright two-tone effect whilst the Bristol houses remained vibrant and unchanged. Various colour effect experiments were carried out to achieve this final image:

I recently started to experiment with using old black and white family photos in my digital collages. For this piece of work, the photos formed a collage on the sails of the junk:

Whilst the previous work for the MA show was printed on silk, I feel this image would suit a woven canvas (e.g. a traditional cotton woven canvas). So my plan is to have this printed on canvas then add brush strokes in the style of Chinese calligraphy. The digital collage was exported to Adobe Freso where I used the painting function to try out different compositions. Below are two examples.

Example 1 – using an abstract image done in Chinese calligraphy style:

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Example 2 – using Chinese characters that meant ‘space’ (as in third space) with a red seal stamp drawn in:

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This is work-in-progress and I will order several printed canvases to try out the calligraphy experiments.

REFLECTIONS

I am happy with the progress so far. I like the way the two harbours came together as one continuous shoreline representing the different parts of my life coming together as a continuum. After my reflections on my third space work so far, my aim here is to create images that are more ambiguous so that both the viewers and I have to think deeper to see what’s there. I am not sure if I have managed to achieve it with this work. I will reserve judgment until the work is complete.

What I am also pleased about is that I am becoming less sensitive about using my family photos. I have always felt that they were too precious to be used, like mining a fragile archeological site. Although I have not used the very precious photos of my close family yet, I am feeling more able to consider the idea.

LEARNING

Since this is still work-in-progress, I’ll leave the full consideration of my learning until the end when the work is finished.

NEXT STEPS

– To order a minimum of four canvases printed with the image to experiment with adding Chinese calligraphy style brush strokes to complete the painting.

– I will go for A1 size to start with; it gives a reasonable area for expression without having to commit too much costs or materials. If I like the outcome then I might consider printing more canvases on a larger scale.

– Other experiments to consider are:

a. Covering the image with a top layer of oil and cold wax abstract painting then complete the painting by scraping off areas to reveal the image underneath.

b. Spray painting in street art style to show further Bristol heritage.

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ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS

After publishing this blog and giving more thoughts about my blog on the elusive third space, I decided not to take this piece of work further. This is because I feel this image is still rather illustrative with images of only ‘A and B’ (as explained in ‘The Elusive Third Space’ blog). So I’m going to leave this for now and focus on the Cheongsam series which may give me more exploration opportunities. I may come back to this later but I’ll leave it here for now.

MA Y1 U1: Exploring Aesthetics – Part 2 – Painting on silk for MA Interim Show

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

Following on from Part 1:

MA Y1 U1: Exploring Aesthetics – Part 1 – Using photos

I ordered the silk printing from Contrado who provided an excellent service. The image I used was the final outcome from Part 1 – the Clifton suspension bridge, hot air balloons, Chinese lanterns and family photos collage. This blog describes the process I went through to do the Chinese painting on the printed silk. The largest Chinese painting I have done up to now had been A1 size and I ordered 1xA1 and 1xA0 for this experiment. The A0 piece was therefore by far the largest Chinese painting that I have attempted. The plan was to use this piece of work for the MA Interim show if it worked out.

Here is the finished painting and I will use it for the MA show:

METHOD

Since I have not done a Chinese painting of A0 size, I wanted to practice on paper before doing it on the silk. As mentioned in some of my Chinese painting blogs, Chinese brush painting is very unforgiving, you only get one go at doing a stroke, hence practicing was important.

Here is the set up with scrolls of Xuan paper stuck together to form a large sheet:

Using the brushes I selected in Part 1 and the composition that I practiced on A4, here is the attempt on A0 size after completing the wild plum tree branches:

Then the plum blossoms were added:

Finished trial painting on paper:

When ordering the printed silk, I had to decide whether to print a border. So I trimmed one of the printed samples to see what a borderless image would look like. I was happy with it and the prints were ordered without border, i.e. printing the image right up to the edge. I also ordered the option of hemmed edges.

Sample image cut without border

In addition, I ordered a small piece of printed silk to test what backing should be used (a piece of felt which is typically used as a backing for Xuan paper painting or just use Xuan paper). Also to test the amount of brush loading and how the brush glided along the surface.

I was not happy with the felt backing because the moisture was not being absorbed fast enough and the silk therefore retained the moisture for too long and started to spread – as can be seen in the close up photo:

So the decision was to use Xuan paper as the backing material for painting on the silk. I started with the A1 piece as practice. Since I do not have a stretching frame for silk painting, I taped the whole piece onto a large board to stretch the fabric.

Below is the finished A1 painting. I was not happy with the painting because the brush loading was too heavy for the branches and as a result, the painting overly dominated the piece. I was disappointed in this but was pleased that I learnt this before doing the A0 piece.

I used the ‘stuck together scrolls’ of Xuan paper from the earlier practice as the backing for painting the A0 piece. It also gave me some rough positions of the composition. The edges of the silk was taped down to ensure the material was sufficiently stretched.

After doing two strokes, I could see the ink picking up the seams of the paper underneath which was not good at all. Once I started painting I was reluctant to stop because it would interrupt my ‘energy flow’, however, I had no choice but to put down my brush and lift up the tapes partially to pull out all the Xuan paper underneath. This was not ideal but had to be done.

With all the backing paper removed, the painting process could resume but with no backing paper to help absorb the ink, there was only the MDF board underneath which was a risk because I hadn’t experimented on MDF before.

It worked fine and I reduced the brush loading as well as the number of branches planned for the composition because I didn’t want to overwhelm the overall image with too dark brush strokes.

The plum blossoms were then added. I also reduced the number of blossoms and tucked some between the balloons and lanterns. I wanted to leave sufficient negative space on the left of the painting to create tension on the canvas juxtaposing the busy right hand side of the image.

After completing the Chinese brush painting, I had the choice of finishing it there, or adding some spray painting. I like adding street art style spray painting to my work because of my home city of Bristol being home to many great street artists and the city is full of beautiful street art. Hence street art is a big part of my heritage.

I was mindful that the canvas is already filled with images and I didn’t want to overdo it. Also I didn’t know how my spray paints would perform on silk. So I experimented with the A1 piece first:

I sprayed some two tone black and white stencilled letters on two lanterns saying ‘3RD SP’ for Third Space:

I was happy with the outcome so I started to lay larger stencils on the A0 piece:

‘3RD SP’ was too much, so I went with just ‘3RD’. I masked off the area and proceeded to spray one letter at a time.

It worked out fine and to take further risk, I added a ‘#’ to proceed the lettering to add a contemporary feel.

After spraying, I found that for some parts, the spray paint seeped through the thin silk and nearly glued the material to the MDF underneath. The silk was rescued in time and was safely lifted off the board.

The finally finished work:

Since I have decided to use this piece for the MA interim show, I had to work out how to hang it.

I have chosen to hang it off a piece of 1 metre x 10mm diameter wooden dowel. this means I had to sew the header of the silk to make provision for the hang. I wanted to minimise losing the images at the top especially to avoid losing my father’s face on the top right photo, I added a piece of silk material ‘tape’ at the top as follows:

The sewing was complete and the silk painting was hung off two metal brackets to simulate how it would hang at the show:

One of the reasons for choosing a thin 38gsm silk material was that I wanted the image to be visible from both sides if it was hung in free air. This is how it looks from behind and I am happy that the image is still visible:

REFLECTIONS

This whole piece of work has turned out to be a much larger undertaking than I imagined because of:

– Using family photos in my digital collage: aside from the emotions involved (which I have not fully resolved yet), there was much work involved in ensuring the resolution was good enough for printing on A0. The print company Contrado was excellent in checking through my design before I placed the order.

– Using new materials: I learnt a lot from choosing the right kind of silk material but it was also very risky because I had not worked with silk before and the thinness of the fabric made it very fragile to work with. The whole process was new to me and I had to make it up as I went along. Due to the costs and lead time involved in purchasing the printed silk, I had to take extra care in the experimental process to minimise wastage of materials as well as time.

– Going large: I wanted to challenge myself to create something new for the MA interim show, hence I went for A0. I found it very challenging because I am still very new to Chinese brush painting and that lack of experience made the process much more stressful than if I had gone for medium that I’m familiar with such as oil paint or acrylic.

What I was happy with:

– I learnt a lot in making this piece of work, documented here and in Part 1. I learnt about new methods, materials and processes. All the practices and trials were essential.

– Starting to use old photos in my digital collage. I still have many photos in my archive that I could use when I feel ready and able to. I have to manage the emotions and fragility involved in using such precious materials. But I have made a start.

– I was happy with the final outcome and was relieved that I have something for the MA interim show.

What I was not happy with:

– I should have anticipated some of the mistakes along the way, it was all useful learning despite being stressful at the time.

– Since the A1 silk experiment didn’t go well with the branches being too dark (overloading of the brush), I was overly cautious with the subsequent A0 piece. Also, my paint brush was not quite large enough. It was one of my mother’s brushes. There was a larger one but it would have been far too large, also, its bristles were starting to fall out and I didn’t want to damage it further since I want to preserve my mother’s brushes as much as possible. So I made do with the smaller sized brush. I would have wanted thicker branches for the A0 piece. Additionally, I could have loaded the brush a little more but I was worried that it would turn out like the A1 piece. Hence I was being overly cautious. It all comes down to my inexperience with Chinese brush painting. I hope this will improve over time with more practice.

Further reflections:

I have spent much of my MA first term developing methods to work with oil and cold wax, however, when it came to the MA show, I went back to an earlier method of transcultural layering where digital collages were printed onto a thin fabric then a Chinese brush painting was layered on top. I thought I would be more familiar with this latter approach but the change of fabric to thin silk and going large made it more challenging than I expected. I am pleased I went with this because it has renewed my enthusiasm for this transcultural layering method and now I have several other ideas in mind to try. I want to continue to pursue both ways of transcultural layering for my practice, namely:

1. Western medium as the lead with oil or oil and cold wax as the top layer, scraped back to reveal images pre-printed on the canvas. The canvas here would be robust such as woven linen/cotton or board.

2. Chinese medium as the lead with digital collages printed on silk and Chinese brush painting or calligraphy layered on top.

Which one to use will depend on the context and the kind of painting I want to make. My current plan is to continue to work on both methods.

LEARNING

– I learnt a lot about working with silk and will continue to use this material. I need to look into buying or making a silk stretching / painting frame that can accommodate large pieces of silk, A0 or larger.

– I gained confidence with my Chinese brush painting and there are no short cuts there – practice and planning are key.

– From the aesthetics exploration perspective, I learnt a lot from the mistakes in the A1 painting. It’s easy to overwhelm an image and it showed once again for me that negative space is so important. Often less is more and leaving space on the canvas creates tension that engages the viewer. I was hesitant in adding the spray paint but I really wanted to do it to bring in that aspect of my Bristol heritage. I am pleased that I did it and managed to reign it in.

NEXT STEPS

– Look into a better set up for painting on silk such as a large stretcher frame.

– Source a few larger good quality Chinese paint brushes for larger scale work.

– Do a new piece of transcultural layering work with a new digital collage of family photos for use with another silk painting or oil and cold wax.

MA Y1 U1: Exploring Aesthetics – Part 1 – Using photos

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

In the ‘developing style’ strand of my practice, I have been exploring how to create ‘transcultural’ images in my art through a process of transcultural layering. I have done some work in this area before starting my MA and I now want to return to it to continue my exploration of transcultural aesthetics as part of my practice.

Below is a piece of work that I did a year ago and I now want to pick it up and develop the piece further with some new ideas, materials knowledge and techniques that I have learnt since starting the MA. The work was originally created using dispersion liquid to transfer a digital collage image from paper to a polyester satin canvas, then the Chinese brush painting was painted on top in ink. 

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I have recently researched into using better quality fabric as the canvas for digital printing as well as for Chinese brush painting. The findings are documented here and the results will be used in this work:

MA Y1 U1: Research – Digital printing on fabric

Below is the original digital collage created using Adobe Express. It has an image of the Bristol Clifton Suspension Bridge which is a famous iconic bridge in my home city of Bristol. I live very near the bridge and often drive or walk over it – it has meaning for me and is one of the images that means ‘home’ to me. Every August, there is a Bristol Balloon Fiesta and there are many images online with hot air balloons flying over the Clifton Suspension Bridge – again, those are iconic images for Bristol. When I made this original digital collage, I used Chinese lanterns instead of hot air balloons flying over the bridge as an attempt to create an overall effect that combined things from the different cultures that have been part of my life. The background teal colour and effect were purposely ambiguous – is the background image associated more with Chinese or Western culture? It’s up to the viewer to interpret.

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METHOD

Taking the original image, I wanted to create more depth and interest in the sky. Therefore, a few hot air balloons were layered over the top in the foreground with the Chinese lanterns appearing to be further back giving a better feeling of depth. Different hot air balloon images were tried and this was the final version. The colours of the balloons were adjusted in the software to harmonise with the existing images. I was happy with the bridge image and no further changes were made to that.

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As part of my narrative development work, I have been researching my family in Hong Kong and I have been given many old family photographs. I remember the photos very well because they were from the family photo albums at my childhood home. I have been wanting to use the photos in my work but I have been reluctant because I have not resolved my feelings towards them – I am not sure if I am ready to use them yet. 

I have always taken much inspiration from the Nigerian-born American artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby and her use of personal photographs. Below is one of her paintings that I saw recently in an exhibition at Tate Modern. Her technique of using faded photo images in the background is often seen in her work. Her images are evocative and they resonate with me because of what my family photos represent for me. 

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Furthermore, at my tutorial last year, I discussed my reluctance to use the family photos with my tutor and he suggested that I try to use a few, perhaps use the ones that were less meaningful to me as a trial. So I picked out a few that were of larger groups, many were family friends and not people that I had strong emotional bonds with. Nonetheless, they were wonderful photos that represented the place (Hong Kong) and a time period when my late parents were young. The photos still had meaning for me because I remember clearly seeing all of them in our family photo albums and many had images of my parents (who passed away some twenty years ago). The digital images of the chosen photos were imported into Adobe Express and arranged on the collage. The transparency of the images were increased so that the background colour of the collage came through partially giving a more faded and blended effect.

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REFLECTIONS

– From a personal perspective, I am pleased with this experiment as I feel I have made progress in making use of the family photos. Getting started was a challenge because all the photo images seemed too precious to use even though they were all digitised. I stared at the images for a while before deciding to choose the less precious ones. It was a strange process in determining the ‘rating’ of how precious or personal a photograph felt to me when each one held a story. The process eased once I got started so I am happy that I did this experiment because I feel I have a way forward in using the treasure trove of all the old family photos – this part of my exploration will remain a slow process but I have made a start.

– From the technical and aesthetic perspectives, I am happy with the new learning gained in using the digital tool to manipulate the images especially with the photo transparency. The outcome was the effect that I was looking to create. My ‘aesthetic goal’ is to create a transcultural feel for the piece, meaning the work represents and originates from my ‘Third Space’ (as described in the book The Location of Culture by Homi K Bhabha). Akunyili Crosby talks a lot about making work from her Third Space, hence I find much resonance with her work.

– This work is an example of where the two strands of my practice (developing style and developing narrative) mutually inform and I hope they will eventually converge when I have developed a more definitive style.

– I now have to source the fabric to print the image onto, then do a Chinese painting on top. I will source the printed fabric from Contrado as explained in this blog:

MA Y1 U1: Research – Digital printing on fabric

– I am considering making this work for the MA Interim Show in March 2024 if the rest of the process works according to plan. So I have been doing lots of practice Chinese brush paintings to test the techniques, composition and to choose the best paint brushes for the different parts of the intended painting – a plum blossom.  

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LEARNING

– I remain happy with the transcultural layering process that I started a year ago and I want to build on this line of enquiry with my latest learning to find the transcultural aesthetics that I have been searching for.

– Digital collages of a combination of found images and old family photos have a lot of potential for creating the transcultural aesthetics that I want. But I am looking for more than just a digital collage, so the collage can be the background on the canvas and then I can paint on top with Chinese brush painting (reflecting my heritage) and/or spray painting (reflecting my home city of Bristol which is famous for street art and there are plenty around for inspiration). Also, the oil and cold wax exploration that I have recently started can also be part of the layering process. I am mindful that the key is not to overdo the layers or overwhelm the image; I must remember to ‘leave room for the image to breathe’ creating tension on the canvas. My purpose for the different material explorations is to give myself options in my art making knowing what materials go together in order to create the desired aesthetical effects.

– I made a start in using my family photos and I feel I can do more with this approach, especially as the two strands of my practice start to mutually inform.

– I will proceed with this piece of work with the potential of using it in the MA Interim Show, so I need to think about how to hang the piece.

NEXT STEPS

– Order the chosen silk fabric and the printing of the digital collage.

– Decide on the final composition for the Chinese painting and practice on larger paper ready for the real thing.

– Think about ways to hang the piece.

– Make more work with using the family photos – a long term project.

MA Y1 U1: Exploring colours – Part 1 – red and blue

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

As part of my style development work, I have just completed a series of media exploration where I experimented with combining oil and cold wax with various ways of overlaying Chinese brush paintings on top without compromising either medium. I now want to progress onto exploring aesthetics starting with colours.

Despite having attended workshops on colour mixing over the years and researched how colours work together, I have always used colours intuitively in my paintings rather than follow any strict rules. However, I often feel that I should be more considered when using colours for my work. I attended an exhibition of London based Columbian artist, Ofelia Rodrigues, where I was inspired by her use of colours and images to express her culture giving a strong sense of place for her narrative.

For my art practice, I have reached a point where I want to re-evaluate and hone how I use colours, especially when my aim is to express my stories and narrative through my work. Also, my wish is to go towards semi-abstraction for my narrative work and I believe the use of colour is key. This is the first blog of the series on exploring the use of colour to express a sense of place for my transcultural narrative.

METHOD

To begin with, I needed some visual inspiration. I started by gathering books that I have on contemporary Chinese artists as well as chinoiserie style art. Although chinoiserie art has deep roots in political historical, its origin is not part of the research here. In my view, chinoiserie is an example of art in the ‘Third Space’ – where two cultures come together and something new emerges that has characteristics of the original cultures. Although the chinoiserie style of art does not appeal to or resonate with me, their use of colours is worth examining for my research purpose.

My aim here is to look through images in the books and choose one that resonates. Then mix the colours and explore similar colours as a ‘back to basics’ exercise to get my thought process going and to see where it takes me.

Books that I gathered:

The book that I have chosen for this exercise is by a contemporary Chinese artist, Wu Guan Zhong. The link below gives a good summary about the artist:

https://www.christies.com/en/stories/wu-guanzhong-an-artist-of-feeling-rather-than-fact-dd97ec0d995d47eb9c56753e3c280e41

The painting that I have chosen to kick start my colour exploration:

I got out all my various red oil paints and increased the lightness of each by tinting with titanium white:

Several matching possibilities came up in my ‘red’ chart:

Then the same exercise was repeated with all my blue oil paints:

Various matching possibilities came up:

I added a new turquoise paint that I bought recently to the chart:

An abstract painting was made with all the left over paint:

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REFLECTIONS

– Although it was not the intention, it turned out to be a useful inventory exercise for my oil paint. Since I often default to certain favourites, I have neglected others that have turned out to be ‘gems’ in the tinting process.

– There were also new findings about the different brands. I want to capture my thoughts here as a reminder for the future:

1. Michael Harding oil paint is always my favourite and this exercise reminded me that they deserve that top spot with the buttery consistency, pigment quality and load concentration.

2. Winsor and Newton artists oil was once a favourite before I went onto Michael Harding. This exercise reminded me of the quality of their pigment load, colour and how well they mixed. A solid product that I should not have neglected.

3. Daler Rowney Georgian oil was a brand that I used when I first started learning to paint in oil. It was sold to me as student grade oil. However, I recently read some reviews by artists saying they use it as their go-to oil so I decided to try them again. They are good value and I recently bought a batch ready for some larger scale oil experiments and they are just right for that. Pigment load is not as good as the above two but definitely good enough for some of my experiments where I plan to use a lot of oil. The ones I used for this exercise stood up well enough in the tinting process and produced some interesting colours.

4. I was introduced to Cass Art artist’s oil when I was in their shop. It’s a range that I have not tried before. It was sold as good value artist grade oil and better quality than the Daler Rowney Georgian oil that I was buying at the time. So I bought some to try, e.g. the turquoise in the last column of the blue tinting exercise. I was somewhat disappointed because the consistency was not as good as the other brand’s artist grade or even the DR Georgian oil performed better in this respect. I was also disappointed with the pigment colour and load. So I don’t think I will buy this brand again.

5. I have had a set of PEBEO oil for years and rarely use them despite the good range of vibrant colours. I got them out for this exercise and was pleasantly surprised. I always considered them as student grade quality and although it didn’t compare well to Nos. 1 and 2 above, it performed well in mixing and pigment load. The paint appeared more flat and matt compared to the other oils but it is certainly good enough for day-to-day projects. The wide variety of colours in the PEBEO set is a bonus that I have been neglecting.

– This was a good back-to-basics exercise that I needed to do to restart my colour exploration. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for but I want to continue this with other colours.

– It occurred to me at the end of the exercise that I recently made a painting using similar colours to those in Wu’s painting. My painting was started by finding an old photograph of my parents’ lounge during one Chinese New Year when they were both alive many years ago. I don’t know why these two colours speak to me whenever I want to make narrative work. I also remember that I showed this painting at a crit session and I struggled to explain it. I need to think more about this…

–

LEARNING

– Some good discoveries of tinted reds and blues for me to consider using when determining colour palette for future narrative work.

– The colours in Wu’s painting and some of the tints in this exercise clearly speak to me but I don’t know why yet. Interrogating this might reveal more clues and help to develop more depth for my narrative.

– I have not studied Wu’s work before and researching his work showed that he also worked with oil and Chinese ink. This is a useful finding as that’s what I am trying to do as well. Since Wu is a European (French) trained artist (painter) of Chinese origin, we have some common backgrounds and I will add Wu to my list of artists to research, especially about his chosen media and process.

NEXT STEPS

– Do another tinting or colour mixing exercise – find another painting for inspiration.

– Think more about why the colours in Wu’s painting speak to me.

– Add Wu to my list of artists to research.

Chinese painting: Sumi-e painting – animal

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

At my monthly Chinese painting class, we have started to learn Sumi-e painting. Sumi-e means ‘water ink’ and water ink painting originated in China around 300AD. Zen Buddhist monks from China introduced this style of ink art to Japan in the 14th century where over time the brush strokes were reduced in number and simplified forming the Japanese Sumi-e style painting of today.

At a previous lesson, we started to paint leaves by copying from worksheets and this lesson we practiced some more.

The homework this month was to paint an animal such as our pet. No worksheets were given and we had to work out how to create our simplified style Sumi-e animal painting (without looking online for hints). This blog records the method I used for the homework.

METHOD

As a warm up exercise, I mixed the Chinese ink with water to ‘find’ the five shades that would be needed to depict tone in the painting. It took a few attempts to get the right result.

I made some pencil tonal sketches from photos of my sadly departed cats. Then overlaid the Xuan (rice) paper on top for painting.

Result:

Using the same method, a few close up portraits were painted:

Then I used a photograph and overlaid the Xuan paper on top to paint/trace the tonal areas:

First attempt of ‘tracing’
Second attempt of ‘tracing’

Then I started painting freehand without tracing. I had seven attempts and each time reducing the number of brushstrokes and simplifying the image.

Seven attempts at freehand painting

Close up of the seventh and final attempt:

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REFLECTIONS

I have been wanting to learn Sumi-e painting because I see it as a way towards semi-abstraction in Chinese brush painting which is something that I’m interested in. I enjoy the thinking that is involved in this making process.

I enjoyed the exercise and was pleased with the outcomes as early attempts. I do find Chinese water-ink or Sumi-e painting very challenging. It is the most unforgiving style and painting medium that I have used. With oil and acrylic, one can correct mistakes by wiping off or painting over. Even watercolour can be corrected to a certain extent. Since the depiction in Sumi-e is done by one stroke and going over a stroke makes it look clumsy, therefore everything has to be as perfect as possible for each stroke, such as:

– Water/ink pigment balance for the tone.

– Amount of water/ink on the brush (and depending on the type of hair for the brush) to match the absorbency of the type of Xuan paper used for each stroke. The paper or silk is usually highly absorbent which makes it challenging.

– Placement of each stroke and the pressure along the travel.

It is very challenging and I love it. I feel the tension within myself in a way that is unlike any other painting media. I expect it’s also because I am so new to this and I need a lot more practice. The process of simplifying was also challenging like solving a puzzle which added to the pleasure of this way of making.

LEARNING

– Mixing the five tonal shades at the start and having plenty of ink of each shade made up really helped. However, I still find myself mixing as I went along especially for the ‘double loading’ technique.

– Tracing over tonal drawings or photos helped to give confidence at the practicing stage. Practicing in this way helped me to progress onto freestyle painting.

– Understanding the structure or anatomy of the subject is essential for the simplification process to work.

NEXT STEPS

– Keep practicing to build knowledge of the materials and process.

– Try other animals or objects.

– Start to think about how to incorporate this approach into my transcultural style development work.

UPDATE

Below is an update on Sumi-e painting progress since the session detailed above.

My tutor asked me to do a free-hand cat portrait without using any pencil drawings as guide under the Xuan paper. Below are the outcomes:

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The following lesson was on Sumi-e flowers:

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REFLECTIONS

I have enjoyed Sumi-e painting because I am more interested in free style Chinese painting (techniques are akin to Sumi-e) than the meticulous style. So these paintings have been good practice for me. The key is to keep practicing in order to master the skills required in applying paint having understood how the materials work together with the painter.

MA Y1 U1: Exploring media – Oil and cold wax – Part 7

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND:

This is an experiment to complete one of the actions from an earlier blog – Exploring media – oil and cold wax Part 6. The action was to:

– Experiment with a barrier or masking fluid to prevent the oil from seeping into the Chinese brush painting images.

This experiment is required because the Xuan paper (rice paper) used for Chinese brush painting is very thin and absorbent, therefore if the paper was laid over materials such as oil in my transcultural layering work, the oil paint underneath would seep through and ruin the Chinese brush painting image as happened in Part 6 of this blog series.

METHOD:

The three barrier fluids chosen for this experiment were: Dispersion liquid; PVA glue and matte Mod Podge.

Some small images painted using Chinese ink were used for this experiment. The back of each image was painted with one type of the barrier fluids with one image left bare as ‘control’ for the experiment.

A paper canvas was painted with a mix of oil paint and cold wax:

The Chinese painted images were cut out and pressed onto the oil and cold wax. The images were pressed hard onto the painted canvas using a palette knife to robustly test the barrier performance.

Below is the result – an overall image followed by close-ups of each test area. 

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Result: The best outcome was the Mod Podge.

REFLECTIONS

I am happy with the outcome of this experiment. This was a quick experiment but a very important one because, as shown in this blog series, it has been challenging to incorporate Chinese brush painting onto oil or oil and cold wax – the latter being my chosen ‘Western’ medium for my current series of transcultural style development work. The outcome of this experiment has helped me to find a viable way forward and I can now move onto developing colour palettes and aesthetics for my style knowing that I have found a way to combine the materials from different cultural origins without losing any material integrity.

LEARNING  

The learning here is a straight forward one. Mod Podge worked well as a barrier fluid to protect the Chinese ink work before incorporating it into the oil and cold wax ‘collage’.

NEXT STEPS

Pick up from the previous post (Part 6) and resume the next actions from there. The immediate next action will be to research and develop colour palettes that can help to communicate my transcultural narrative.

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ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENT

I was given two pieces of specialist Chinese painting paper by my Chinese art teacher. They are:

– Beijing bark paper, and

– Cicada wing paper (because it’s so thin that it resembles the wings of cicadas).

Both types of paper are of beautiful quality and feel very delicate. They are both very thin which would be ideal for what I’m looking for in my transcultural layering work. I.e. overlaying Chinese brush painting onto a more viscous medium such as oil.

I repeated the above experiment with these papers. I wrote some Chinese calligraphy characters on each sheet:

Then painted part of the image on the reverse side with Mod Podge as a barrier and leaving part of the image bare to compare:

Once the Mod Podge was dried. The two sheets were pressed onto a base layer of oil and cold wax. A palette knife was used for the edges, blending the paper with the oil paint to bury the edges. Then I used my finger to press the image into the oil:

Below is the outcome with the cicada paper performing well compared to the Beijing bark. The cicada paper appears to have an inbuilt barrier to protect the image, meaning that a barrier liquid would not be required as there was no perceivable difference whether Mod Podge was used.

Then more oil and cold wax was applied on top to blend in the image whilst avoiding the characters. Final result:

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REFLECTIONS / LEARNING

Out of all the Chinese painting papers that I have tested in this series of exploration, the cicada paper was the best material for the purpose of my transcultural layering work involving Chinese brush painting and oil based medium.

Additionally, it was useful to discover that a barrier liquid (e.g. Mod Podge) would not be required with the cicada wing paper. This will help to reduce the process complexity.

NEXT STEPS

– Create a new piece of work that uses the new discovery with the cicada paper to refine the process and to learn more about the material.

– Source more cicada paper and find a long term supplier for this paper.

.

This experiment ends the series of blogs on ‘Exploring media – Oil and cold wax’.

MA Y1 U1: Exploring media – Oil and cold wax – Part 6

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

I want to use this experiment to explore the Next Steps that were identified in Exploring Media – Oil and Cold Wax Part 5.

https://eliza-rawlings.com/2023/12/24/ma-y1-u1-exploring-oil-and-cold-wax-part-5/ 

The actions were to:

-Try out more Chinese brush paint collage onto oil and cold wax to refine this part of the process.

-Try exposing a larger area of the background image to see if that can work with the abstraction approach on the top layer. Experiment to find the right balance between revealing the base layer image without losing the sense of abstraction on the top layer.

-Try spray painting on top of the oil and cold wax surface – try when wet and then when dried.

Finished work for Part 6:

Mixed media on paper, A3

METHOD

A printed photo image of a tapestry that was gifted to me by my brother many years ago was used as the based image for this piece. The image was transferred onto a paper canvas using dispersion liquid. The paper used was 250 gsm oil paper.

After the dispersion liquid dried, the printed image was rubbed off with a wet sponge to reveal the transferred image on the canvas. This was the first time a paper canvas (as opposed to a cotton canvas) was used in this series of experiments and it was clear that the paper canvas was not robust enough for the process. See below image for damage to paper. However, there was sufficient integrity in the paper canvas to continue the piece. I was hoping that a thick layer of oil and cold wax would hide the damaged areas. There was also excessive buckling on the paper canvas.

Recalling my disappointment with the colour palette that I chose for Part 5 (pink and grey), I decided to research into abstract paintings that I like to learn from the colours used. One of my favourite abstract artists is Lee Krasner and below is the painting that I decided to study and learn from in terms of the colour palette used.

Desert Moon (1955):

A layer of oil and cold wax was then applied to the canvas:

Areas were scraped off to reveal the base tapestry image. Learning from Part 5, I wanted to reveal a larger area so that it was clear what the base image was about. Then additional oil and cold wax colours were added:

For the Chinese brush calligraphy, I chose a delicate silk fabric as a substrate that was almost transparent because I wanted the substrate to become as invisible as possible.

After writing the Chinese calligraphy onto silk, it was cut out and carefully pressed onto the oil and cold wax layer.

A small palette knife was used to press the silk into the oil and cold wax, taking care to avoid pressing the areas of the calligraphy characters which was challenging due to the complex shape of the characters. The yellow circle shows where part of the character was pressed into the oil and cold wax, partly obscuring the writing.

Additional marks were made – some were painted on and some were scratched off. The tapestry image was about children playing with lanterns and I have a lantern stencil that was made for previous work. So I wanted to experiment with spray painting onto wet oil and cold wax to see the effect.

Further spray painting was done – the phrase #3RD SP (for third space) was sprayed onto a dryer corner of the painting. All spray paint used were Montana GOLD 312g aerosol cans as popularly used by street artists:

Finished work with border tidied up:

…

REFLECTIONS

I am happy with:

– The colour palette. I am much happier with this painting than the previous one in Part 5. A more considered approach in selecting the colour palette paid off here.

– The experiment with using an almost transparent substrate for the Chinese brush art worked well. The pieces (there were two in total) adhered well to the painted surface. Although the substrate was not completely invisible, it was acceptable as a solution.

– The scratched mark making especially the part at the top to echo the revealed based image of the children playing with lanterns.

– The overall look of the spray painting, especially the words – they added a contemporary feel to the piece which was what I was looking for.

– Feeling more confident using oil and cold wax as a medium.

I am not so happy with:

– The paper canvas, it was not robust enough. Although the damage by the image transfer process was covered up with oil and cold wax, it was clear that this would be the wrong material to use for this process.

– The spray painting of the lantern – it was sprayed onto very wet oil and cold wax. The outcome was not satisfactory – it felt and looked ‘gooey’ and not the intended effect. I believe this was partly due to my reluctance to place the stencil close to the wet oil paint as I didn’t want the back of the stencil to pick up the oil paint, causing the spray paint to loosely disperse around the stencilled image.

– Although I was happier with the colour palette, I felt there was more that could be done to add more complexity to the palette to increase depth to the piece.

General comment: the Chinese calligraphy is a famous ancient Chinese poem about being homesick. It is one of the few Chinese poems that I know as most children growing up in Hong Kong in my era were made to learn it, partly because it is a good poem and very easy to remember. Going forward, I feel that if I were to use more Chinese calligraphy then I should learn more about Chinese poetry so that I can use a wider variety of content in this respect. It will also help me to understand more about my Chinese heritage.

Other thoughts that came to me some time after completing this painting:

– Throughout the making process, my mind kept going back to celebrating the Mid Autumn Festival when I was a child in Hong Kong. The highlight as children was to be given a lantern each to play with. The choosing and buying of the lantern in preparation was always a source of excitement. The lanterns were lit with small candles. The children would use a long stick as handle for the lantern and go around the neighbourhood exploring with their lanterns, just like the children in my painting. The Mid Autumn Festival celebrated the fullest moon of the year and celebrations would only begin after dark when the full moon came out. Since we were not usually allowed out at night, it made the Festival especially popular with children. At times a lantern would catch fire which added much excitement. There would be lots of fruit and snacks laid out that were specific for the festival. I remember one year when we were older children (over ten years old), my brother and I went to a local park, sat on the swings and chatted all evening. It was when my family was going through a difficult period and to share that moment with him was very special, especially when we ended up spending most of the rest of our lives living in different countries. He gave me the children’s tapestry that I used for this painting which evoked all those memories while making this piece of work.

LEARNING

– More work is required to develop my sense in choosing an appropriate colour palette for the piece. This is increasingly important because my work is about storytelling as well as narrative and I believe having an appropriate colour palette helps to tell a story. So more research and experiments should be done in this respect.

– The silk substrate worked well for the Chinese calligraphy. However, I know there is a wide range of other delicate Chinese substrates and I will experiment with different materials to find the optimum.

– Layering the Chinese substrate onto oil is a risky process – as seen in the image with the yellow circle highlighting the part obscuring of the brush painting if pressed too much into the oil. To help with this, further experiments are required to improve this process. E.g. paint a barrier layer, such as a masking fluid that dries clear, onto the back of the Chinese brush painting or calligraphy to shield the image from the oil seeping in from underneath.

– Spray painting, especially words, adds a contemporary feel to the image which is a style that I want to incorporate into my work. This is relevant to me because I take much inspiration from the extensive street art scene in my home city of Bristol where many famous street artists work or have worked.

– Using the tapestry image evoked many memories, perhaps I could explore that more.

NEXT STEPS

– Research into colour palettes for the type of stories that I want to tell. Build confidence in this area.

– Continue to build experience and explore using oil and cold wax.

– Experiment with other transparent Chinese substrate materials to find one that is as close to invisible as possible when layered onto oil.

– Experiment with a barrier or masking fluid to prevent the oil from seeping into the Chinese brush painting images.

– Experiment with more spray painting – be bold and push boundaries.

– Ongoing learning – research into Chinese poetry to find more poems that resonate with me to use in future work.

– Explore the evoked memories.

ADDITIONAL WORK

After visiting the exhibition of Ofelia Rodriguez again at Spike Island in Bristol, I was inspired by the way she used fabric as a border to her paintings.

This gave me the idea to try that with my work, especially to use Chinese imagery border for a recent piece of work to add to the transcultural narrative.

I started with some patterned paper that I had to make a collage frame. But I was not happy with the effect. It seemed too busy and rather random as an idea.

I then returned to the original tapestry that I used as the base image for the painting. It was a tapestry that was gifted to me by my brother many years ago.

Image to show the border of the tapestry

It is a typical border for small scale tapestries of this type. Then images of the border were printed and cut out to create a collage border for the painting:

Final finished work:

Mixed media on paper, 54 x 41.5 cm.

REFLECTIONS

I am very happy with the outcome of this experiment inspired by Rodrigues. It has completed the painting for me and added a more transcultural feel alongside the painted images such as the spray painted words.

To improve this approach, I would spray paint the # words to partly cover the tapestry image frame. I think that would increase the contemporary feel for the piece juxtaposing the traditional Chinese tapestry border.

MA Y1 U1: Developing narrative – Bowling lawn incident

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

Following on from a previous piece of digital art work where I researched and experimented with Procreate and Adobe Fresco, I chose to use Adobe Fresco for this piece of work because I found using my MS Surface Pro with the MS Stylus worked well; it was an enjoyable way to create art that is new to me.

This is part of my narrative development work from memory, where I make work when thoughts or scenes come into mind. In this case, it was a childhood memory. The trigger for this memory came from researching into Homi K. Bhabha’s book, The Location of Culture, where he talked about ‘mimicry’. Bhabha asserts that the colonised people would try to mimic the behaviour and culture of the coloniser in order to be more accepted by those in authority. According to Bhabha, the coloniser wanted the colonised to mimic them because it was a form of imposing soft power making the colonised adopt the coloniser’s culture and habits as a higher standard. To reinforce the power structure, the coloniser would demonstrate their power by judging good and bad mimicry. The coloniser did not want the colonised to be great at mimicking because it was important to maintain a differentiation between the two to justify the act of colonising.

Understanding Bhabha’s explanation of ‘mimicry’ reminded me of an incident that happened in my childhood in Hong Kong on a bowling green… It was a case of bad mimicry and I got into trouble for it.

There was a pristine lawn bowling green in front of our apartment block where the British would bowl on sunny weekend afternoons. As local kids, we were not allowed to go onto the green – it was forbidden. However, it was too tempting so one day, my siblings and I (three of us) went to play on the lawn. We were soon shouted at by a white British man. We didn’t know what he was saying but he was clearly shouting for us to get off (shouting and waving his arms dismissively). Kids innocently playing on grass where they shouldn’t do was no big deal, it happened all the time everywhere in the world. But on this occasion, our father who worked for the British HK Government was angry when he heard about what we did. He wouldn’t usually get involved with discipline for us and certainly not for something so trivial, that side of parenting was left to our mother. But he personally told us off as soon as he was home from the office. The fact that he scolded us as soon as he got home meant that he was informed of the incident at work; the news somehow reached him through an official channel. Now in hindsight, I believe we made him look bad at work because we showed that his family were poor mimics, we didn’t respect the bowling green like good British people would. Our poor mimicry as kids must have undone the good mimicry work that my father was working so hard to portray at his work. We were bad kids and made him look bad in front of his superiors.

Researching into Bhabha’s idea on mimicry reminded me of that incident and I wanted to make a piece of work about it.

Finished work:

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METHOD

Adobe Fresco was used for this work. Below are images showing the layers that were created – some were imported images and others were painted or drawn using the software. The three little sparrows were metaphors for me and my siblings. There were always lots of small tree sparrows on our balcony when we were young and I like using that as a metaphor for me as a child in my narrative art work.

The base layer image was a scene I found online of the said bowling lawn dated back to WWII during the 1940s – the lawn in the image is mostly obscured by the Prison Officers’ Club house in the foreground. My father worked for the HK Crown Prison (Correctional) Service and the apartment block on the left was where we lived – it was called Block K. Out flat was on the middle floor on the left side of the block. Seeing the photo brought back so many memories of my childhood at Flat No. K3.

The base layer photo was found in this blog and the blog details some very interesting history about the area which was used as a POW camp during WWII and our Block K housed Dutch and Norwegian POWs.

http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.com/2016/12/december-2016-diary.html?m=1

REFLECTIONS

I have found Bhabha’s book, The Location of Culture, very insightful and I continue to enjoy using his theories to help me to make sense of my lived experiences as a transcultural person. This incident was an example of how this part of my learning worked.

I also enjoyed working with Adobe Fesco. I found the tool straight forward to use. I particularly like the fact that I can work on my phone on the go, then refine and build on my work when I’m at home with my Surface Pro. So I’ll continue to use Fesco as my go-to digital art tool.

Researching Bhabha’s theory of mimicry helped me to understand the incident and why my father was upset by what was a rather trivial act by his kids. A question I am asking myself is – how does doing narrative art work like this one help me? I do not have an answer yet but I want to note down this question as an ongoing enquiry.

LEARNING

Researching Bhabha’s work has inspired me to make work to develop my narrative. This is what I had hoped would happen so I’m happy with this progress and will continue this path of learning.

Adobe Fresco is a useful tool that I like, I should continue to explore its functionality.

I was unable to answer the question that I posed myself ‘How does my narrative work help me?’ – Why am I doing it? I need to give this more considered thoughts.

NEXT STEPS

– Keep going with research on The Location of Culture.

– Do another piece of work using Fresco, perhaps try the painting functions and not just drawing.

– Start to articulate my thoughts on how my narrative work helps me. I expect this to be a slow enquiry process…

UPDATE ON ENQUIRY

I have been thinking a lot about the above since posing those questions to myself ‘How does my narrative work help me?‘ and ‘Why am I doing it?’. In a recent Group Tutorial during our weekly MA online session, my group helped me to explore those questions. They also asked some additional useful questions, such as ‘Who am I doing it for?’ and ‘Has art ever solved any other problems for me?‘

Reflecting on the Group Tutorial, my latest thoughts are:

Firstly, ‘who am I doing it for?‘ My immediate answer was ‘for me, I am doing this for me’. 

Why am I doing it? My response was that the exploration helped me to understand more about myself, my behaviour and response to situations. 

How does my narrative work help me and has art ever solved any other problems for me? For this, my answer during the Group Tutorial was that art had never solved any problems for me but there have been cases where by exploring my narrative through my art practice, it had helped to crystalise or pinpoint a problem and brought better clarity. However, after the group discussion, I reflected further and felt that in fact on occasions, my art and practice research have helped me to find answers. Such as this case of the ‘bowling lawn incident’ – through my art making and research, I had a better insight into the colonial soft power structure that my father had to work in therefore giving me a better understanding of his environment and helped to explain some of his behaviour that impacted us all.  

Although I have made some progress, I am aware that these answers are still quite close to the surface and I want to take more time to continue this line of enquiry, hence it is still ongoing…