Waves of Color presents a multitude of artworks created by young emerging artists of diverse backgrounds and artistic styles.
The exhibition includes installation, animation, graphic artworks and sculptures that are vibrant in visual and fluid in the perception of what is art. It is a unique homage to the multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural Melbourne art scene, identifying diversity as an experience that is as captivating and uncontrollable as dashing waves.
Thinking about color is thinking about how we draw borders in everyday life. Colors have thematic representations, such as emotions, sacredness, gender and sexuality, and race. In certain European cultures, the Virgin is historically recognized by a particular blue pigment of her robe, which was traditionally made with precious gemstones. Happiness and good luck in Chinese cultures are symbolized by red, and is strictly forbidden at funerals. Babies are given pink or blue sweaters according to their gender, while the rainbow flag has been popularized as an emblem for the LGBT movement. Colors in describing race – black, white, yellow, brown – have established imagination of ethnic borders as physical and distinct quality.
In the meanwhile, the materiality of color has drastically changed after the nineteenth-century invention of chemical pigment production, and as anthropologist Michael Taussig articulates, “color is what sold and continues to sell modernity”. Our experiences of the world in contemporary society are shaped by colorful consumer products and luminous computer and phone screens.
In Australia, people arrive on this land in waves. Each wave of migrants bring with them colorful cultures, stories and personalities. No matter how distinct their shades of skin or traditions are, people’s views are fluid, like waves, gradually mixing with one another and slowly becoming something new as a whole. Waves of Color explores the interactions between different mediums and ideas that become interconnected parts of a new dynamic.
Curated by: Kana Miyazawa
EXHIBITING ARTISTS: ANDREW ALLISTER | IAN CHAN | TIA SHEN | LOUIS SLAMOWICZ | SAHARAT MIKE SRIMUANG | DUYEN TRAN | YUSI ZANG & DUDU YANG