Curatorial Rationale

This body of work began as an exploration into how I viewed my own identity, and from there ventured into values that are important to me and how perceptions and perspectives tend to differ, when it comes to aspects such as how identity is perceived. In presenting this body of work, I was hoping to achieve that composition of explorations and convey the values that I consider integral to my identity. Some of the most prominent flows involve that from the portraiture signalling individual identity, into the communal and more shared identities I hold, such as with my culture. The motif of Bees also signifies this as I was inspired by the strong sense of community held by bee communities and had a vision of using those similarities in illustrating the importance of community not just in my culture but in myself. Within my family, my school community, and my social life, there is an aspect of socialisation and aiding each other with the support I wanted to convey.

Linework played a major role in the development of my artwork as I used it as the bases of my skills. Starting with the self-portraits I used techniques such as that of Risa Fukui to create representations of humanity and societal perceptions of the identity. Here themes of the portrayal of individuality transitioned into support systems with the creation of a portrait featuring the background of the bee motif. This was meant to signify how we are products of our community and influenced a series of exploration pieces into my cultural background and how the community is portrayed there.

Yayoi Kusama also played a major role in influencing the intention behind my work as I studied her work on Mental Health for my Comparative Study. While I appreciated her work for its tonal range and exciting nature, she was imperative in understanding the visual impacts that a piece can have on highlighting that not all issues have to be represented in a certain way. And just because it is an issue, does not correlate to necessarily sadder tones.

The pieces heavily correlated with my Indian background not only explored themes of feminism but linked to that sense of community, how we as a society treat women and the female identity. What expectations are held and how we can challenge those portrayals. Breaking free from those traditions and superstitions was how I closed the exhibition, with a progression towards change and empowerment.

My intentions with the display were to represent my artistic journey in the visual layout. As I started with my own identity and then ventured outwards into concepts I considered important and those that surrounded me, I wanted the composition to mimic that.

In terms of developing a relationship between the artwork and the viewer, I created interactive features such as animation with the purpose of intensifying the impact of the piece. This increased the intensity as the animations were much more direct and closer to the eye. It also allowed for the smaller details such as the lines to be appreciated. 3D Pieces such as the ecosystem required the viewer to appreciate it up close, such as for the details within the pods and from afar to gather the overall composition. I believe these strategies aided in creating a visual impact for the viewer for the exhibition and communicating the overall themes.

The overall arrangement was meant to follow the creation timeline, as I felt that as I created pieces, I explored my overall themes, thus creating a natural progression. From my own identity, to communal identities, I wanted the layout to demonstrate this relationship in order to allow the audience to truly understand the themes. My intention was for the audience to learn about what values I consider important while considering the different ways I have expressed that.