Oriental Boxes

Thought I'd give you a break from my 'open and closed' boxes with a posting of a set of four 'open' boxes made in my studio early last year ( 2019 ) ... these pieces and their accompanying plinths featured at my exhibition at the Ambo Gallery in April of the same year ...

  #1 Library unto Heaven

I have used pages from a 1930's Chinese almanac

to make the scrolls and line the walls etc ...

The scrolls I use in all my artworks represent stories - your stories -

in most cases I use paper from foreign books and newspapers

to give the artwork a sense of mystery ...

I imagine that an ancient library would be packed with hand written scrolls

rather than books - and the scrolls would need to be taken down

the binding undone and the paper rolled out to be read ...

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#2 Made in China

My work is mostly about abstract with a gentle touch of reality

and a fine dusting of fantasy - the stories I create are from my inner psyche,

found lying on the floor of my imagination by my muse and presented

to me as inspiration as I rummage through the collectables in my studio.

The stories are not always understandable or obvious to the viewer of my art 

and I ask the viewer not to try to interpret the artists' meaning,

but rather gaze into my work, lose themselves within

and make their own meaning of what they observe ...

 

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  #3 The Mandarin's Procession

The double sided face of a Chinese emperor

is a glazed paperclay cast I made several years ago

Illustrations of spiritual notaries from the almanac

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  #4 Shipment of Knowledge

The old map is of ancient Chinese trade routes around SE Asia...

So there you have it - I must say that I am not a great fan

of the People's Republic of China but I do love Chinese calligraphy

and although I do not read it, I like using Chinese print in my artworks

as I feel it adds an air of puzzlement and mystery to the work -

and challenges the viewer to further interpret the story within ...