Ornamental Patterns: Reclaiming Excess and Difference, 2017
PGDipFA Graduation Exhibition, Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland
https://elamartists.ac.nz/projects/ornamental-patterns-reclaiming-excess-and-difference
Focusing on the usage of ornamental patterns in material and visual culture, this project engages with the historical claim that ornamentation is a form of excess, purely decorative, ‘belonging to women,’ or ‘pollution from the Oriental people.’ Examination of Asian cultural patterns reveals that not only does the ornament have important traditional meanings and functions, it has also served as a connecting thread between generations, diverse cultures and countries through the introduction of religion, historic trading contacts, colonisation, migration, and cross-cultural exchanges. Ornamental patterns bear historical and aesthetic knowledge of a specific culture, traversing language, time, and space barriers. No one is affixed to a single culture; instead we are linked to several in our globalised, interconnected world.
Photos in slideshow by Sam Hartnett
PGDipFA Graduation Exhibition, Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland
https://elamartists.ac.nz/projects/ornamental-patterns-reclaiming-excess-and-difference
Focusing on the usage of ornamental patterns in material and visual culture, this project engages with the historical claim that ornamentation is a form of excess, purely decorative, ‘belonging to women,’ or ‘pollution from the Oriental people.’ Examination of Asian cultural patterns reveals that not only does the ornament have important traditional meanings and functions, it has also served as a connecting thread between generations, diverse cultures and countries through the introduction of religion, historic trading contacts, colonisation, migration, and cross-cultural exchanges. Ornamental patterns bear historical and aesthetic knowledge of a specific culture, traversing language, time, and space barriers. No one is affixed to a single culture; instead we are linked to several in our globalised, interconnected world.
Photos in slideshow by Sam Hartnett