Constanza Valderrama

Recent graduate, Constanza Valderrama is a Chilean artist based in London. Her artistic practice involves exploring photography medium as an object, experimenting and using a multiplicity of materials and techniques to create and print her images.

Her graduation pieces include a series called Horizon Tautology, which is a collection of eight photographic pieces of the same image done with a multiplicity of materials and techniques. The image is a landscape that represents the place where her parents grew up and where they still live. This landscape has also been the background for lots of her memories.

Whereas the repetition of the same image speaks of the recurring act of remembering this place, the different plastic solutions translate autobiographic situations, emotions and sensations that have shaped this memory over time.

This collection is visually linked by the horizon line, articulating a final organic composition containing a multiplicity of shapes, textures, colours and thickness. Altogether, these ten pieces suggest that particular ways of remembering form the general puzzle of memory.

© Constanza Valderrama, from the series ‘Horizon Tautology’; Source @ RCA

Radiator Theatre – Ina Jang

Korean born artist Ina Jang now currently based in New York turns amazing colourful photo collages into paintings. Her latest work Radiator Theatre uses abstract shapes and distinctive colour palettes in the resemblance of female figures: round bodies, ribbons, masks, legs, and heels.

How the work came to life, she mentioned, “for Radiator Theatre, I encouraged myself to let go of my usual processes. Back then, I was exploring photography as a way of documenting what’s around me – I liked its immediacy and directness. I started sketching ideas, and suddenly, it wasn’t enough only to photograph objects as I found them. To create the Radiator Theatre images, I made temporary, painted three-dimensional structures. The project is devoted to the relationship with one’s mother-tongue and our encounters with foreign languages.”

© Ina Jang, from the series ‘Radiator Theatre’ ; Source @ Unseen / Trendland

The work was created from a small set made by the artist on top of the radiator in her modest apartment in New York. Each of the abstract figures is imperfectly hand-cut, hand-coloured, and suggest narratives of their own. They would float listlessly against the background, if not for the shadows created by the sun that shines through the apartment’s window. Their dark shadows root the figures to the ground, creating a sense of space and a new language for relationships between moments in the photographs.

Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko, a Japanese photographer / visual artist, whose work often revolves around small things and little moments in our day to day lives. Her work dances between the subconscious of dreams and the subtlety of the reality – flying birds, close-up of the details of hands, illuminated skies etc – creating loose narratives of visual poetry which gives a tranquil and serendipity feeling from within.

From PHMuseum we learn that she adopts her work ethics from Japanese culture and Buddhism. “I’m not a strict Buddhist, but I like an idea of Buddhism”, Kawauchi explains. And with this comes an appreciation of simple things, and their imperfections.”

Honestly I didn’t know how to appreciate her work before, when I felt at that time her work was very ordinary and nothing special. Yet maybe through my own buddhism practice as well, there’s a growing love and appreciation towards her work. The pictures often display moments that feels so close as if they can be touched. It feels as though I can just walk into this life of what she created – the dance between dreams and reality.

SFMOMA interview:

https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/rinko-kawauchi-contemplates-small-mysteries-life/

 

 

Studying family relationship through FujiQuicksnap – Fion Hung’s Solo Exhibition

There was something mesmerising from this work when I visited the exhibition two weeks ago.

An angle from a female point of view on her takes in looking at family relationships woven with Chinese traditions, is something that touches upon me and I can certainly relate to easily. The work itself was divided into 3 parts.

The first part was using the family salt business tradition as an anchor, where the passing down of such family traditions was created through the medium of photography by the artists. Chinese traditional culture is about passing along the possessions of one generation to the next, and down the chain of the family as a way of family identity. And instead of taking up the salt business, Artist Hung transfer this pass along and bring it to the area of her expertise – photography.

The second part was about the exchange of dialogue between the artist and her mother in a visual sense. They photograph each other creating a visual narratives of how one see each other – with added texts and sounds to represent her feelings towards her family.

And then the third part, from my memory is that it extended the narratives to the whole family – photographing mum and dad. But this part I don’t remember much.

Shame that the exhibition is already over – would love to visit again if there’s a chance.