I am 3rd generation Australian
Chinese. My father and his father were furniture manufacturers establishing a
factory in pre-depression Sydney. This
was apparently a common occupation adopted by Chinese immigrants. My visual
language stems from the industrial environment I spent so many formative years
playing in. This is evident not just in the subject of my painting but also the
poetic architecture of the work. The spare geometric construction and tertiary
colours play off against the expressionist rendering of surface and portrayal
of light.
My memory of the culture of industrial
manufacture was the five day working week and weekends at home mowing lawns and
painting houses. Christmas came and the factory would close for a month and you
would camp at the same caravan park up the coast each year. Growing up in the
South Western suburbs of Sydney this was a typical working class ritual.
My work observes two societal phenomena:
one is the increasing redundancy of small business and domestic manufacture and
the other is the proliferation of high rise high density living as house and
land ownership becomes increasingly unattainable. As a result of corporate
retail and globalisation we have seen the fabric of this lifestyle give way to
material aspiration and human disconnect.
My paintings are not political nor carry an
agenda of protest. They stand as silent witnesses to change….evocative
peripheral images that conjure up triggers within subliminal memory.
At present I’m exploring imagery
surrounding commuting. This synchronises with the working class endeavours
articulated in my past work.
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