Celebrating DIversity: Components
Tomorrow night is the opening for the Celebrate Diversity competition at ArtSHINE! Me and a bunch of other talented artists are going to be there, doing our promoting diversity thing, and seeing who has won. If you're in Sydney, come along and, well, root for me. Obviously, the judges will have already made their decision, but I'll feel nice. Here, read the announcement:
"Celebrate Diversity"
Art Prize Exhibition
17 February- 06 March
Opening:
Thursday 18th February
from 6.00pm- 8.00pm
Winner Announcement at 7pm
The People’s Choice Award
Saturday, March 5
From 2-4pm
ArtSHINE Gallery is housed @Coydney Coworking Space
3 Blackfriars Street, Chippendale
About “Celebrate Diversity” Art Prize
Our FIRST Celebrate Diversity Competition to showcase what artists can create in an A3 size.
Our definition of diversity would include openness to differences among people, cultures and perspectives. A wide range of interests, backgrounds, experiences.
So, here is the actual final version of my entry, called Components. When I put the linework up I never explained the thinking behind it (of course, you may well have already interpreted the meaning behind it, in which case, you are clearly as insightful as I am a gifted at communicating), so here is the statement that will accompany it at ArtSHINE:
Diversity has always been an important aspect in the background of my work, and making it the focus of this project proved to be quite challenging. The circuit board idea reflects one of the benefits of diversity: the quality of various different 'components' of society forming connections to become more than the sum of their parts. I based this piece on faces from Sydney, or who I thought represented the diverse groups in the city; a mixture of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, physical and mental ability. I composed the machine versions of the faces on Bristol Board with pencil and design pens, and designed the circuitry linking them, then scanned and digitally coloured the image.
As I mentioned above, diversity is something that is on my mind a lot. So much so, in fact, that for a while I really struggled to develop my ideas for this project. Diversity is simply always a part of my life: I've grown up around different races, politics, religions, genders, sexualities etc my whole life, and this is probably why I really enjoy diversity in the art I consume; Movies, TV, music or comics which avoid diversity (focussing on mostly straight, mostly white, mostly men) just doesn't catch my interest, as it doesn't reflect my real life experiences. In all my art, diversity is always one of the many factors that I consider, along with composition, narrative, geek influences, etc. To focus down on it to make it the focus of the work was genuinely difficult.
Oh, and expect me to remind you plenty over the coming weeks, but there is also a People's Choice competition to go with this, so please do go ahead and vote for Components there!
