About the Exhibition

This exhibition depicts the process of emotionally growing up through the appearance of structure and chaos. Growth is the act of development over time and it occurs in everyone. The experience is full of uncertainty; we have no clue of what may happen next but we continue to build ourselves based on what we are given. The COVID-19 pandemic is an example of this. Around two months ago, students had no idea that they would be staying at home doing virtual classes, disappointed with the fact that we had our last physical day of high school without knowing it. This built chaos in our lives and this idea became more evident in “Madhouse” and “Raw” and “Swallow” that were completed in lockdown.

The concept was majorly influenced from “Congress” by Julie Mehretu. The impression of the piece being overcrowded yet having an architectural structure intrigued me and I connected this to growing up. Emotional growth does not occur solely by the passage of time, it happens with the experience of planned and unpredicted events that come with time. I compared this idea to structure and chaos. Some artworks integrate grids that portray these ‘planned’ moments of growing up. “Raw”, “Madhouse” and “Decay” are inspired by Laura Owens, who has a series of works with this element. Although it may not directly apply to this exhibition, the curiosity for the idea began with my interest in Neuroscience. The brain continues to develop in adolescence and, as explained in “The Idiot Brain” by Dean Burnett, the organ is not as organized as everyone may think it to be. This was a natural pathway to exploring the concept of structure and chaos. One may think something is arranged to work efficiently with such complexity yet it is so crammed that it is, in reality, barely managing.

This exhibition consists of eight pieces, most of them being mixed media with acrylic paint as the major medium. The forward movement of brushstrokes with paint are parallel to the forward movement of time. It is a medium that communicates the passage of time and therefore is used to portray growth in “Transition” and the rest. Masking tape was also used for “Raw”, “Madhouse” and “Counting” to peel off or let it be a part of the resolved piece. Often masking tape is excluded in the end but I decided to use it to indicate things are still in progress. Collaging was also used in “WYSINWIS” and “Raw”. As a child you would tear up magazines almost like an instinct, collaging is a natural form that represents adolescence. Paint markers prompt the work to be viewed as less ‘serious’, hence why it is used for large scale ‘doodles’ such as “Swallow” and “Unplanned”. Charcoal and pen are also used in “WYSINWIS”, but these mediums were experimental and did not constitute for a particular meaning behind the work.

These pieces are specific to the coherent theme of structure and chaos that illuminate what growing up is like for me and the viewers. Joy, fear, sadness and anger are represented by different colours; they reflect my personal process and the majority of modern society. All exhibition works were completed out of improvisation. I did one after the other and realized that the process was similar to emotionally growing up. One doesn’t know exactly what will come next, but they build themselves off from that feeling of uncertainty. All titles were set to be more ambiguous than definite, allowing viewers to develop their interpretations based on personal experiences.

My intention for the presentation of this work was to hang them on scaffolding frames little taller than 2 meters so larger works can be viewed at eye level. Scaffolding has a sense of being in construction and shows the impression of being unfinished. This strongly links back to the idea of growing up and it still being in progress. The orange backs of the pieces and grey tinted glass in between that are used imitate OMA’s exhibition in New York which also uses scaffolding to bring about its “transformative potential”. This concept was taken into Google SketchUp since I could not access the materials necessary in a time of isolation.

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1 “Congress - Julie Mehretu: The Broad,” Julie Mehretu | The Broad (The Broad, August 17, 2017), https://www.thebroad.org/art/julie-mehretu/congress)

2 Dean Burnett, Idiot Brain (Place of publication not identified: Guardian Faber Publishing, 2017))