About the Exhibition

The artwork displayed for this exhibition is based on the concept of nostalgia. The work I have created is specifically based on the images that I have that make me feel nostalgic. These images represent my childhood, my life and things that make me feel at home. Though these experiences are personal to me, there is a saying that  “we all lived the same childhood in different houses”, and although this mine may be drastically different to others, I want my artwork to make others think of what makes them feel at home and whether they reminisce about their past, it’s something I feel that the subject of feeling nostalgic can be experienced among a lot of different types of audiences. 

For the creation of my artwork I have used various mediums though the majority of my pieces are created with fine line ink pens and watercolour. I found inspiration in these mediums through the work of watercolour artist Ian Sidaway. His work consisted of watercolour paintings that portrayed landscapes and nature in general which he also created with a fine line pen work that he mostly used for portraits. What I found the most intriguing about his art is how simple his pieces are though still were detailed and conveyed a little bit of hyperrealism. I feel that the type of art one can make by using mediums such as watercolour and fine line pens are very buildable. You have the ability to create something minimalistic or either detailed with any theme that you choose. Like Sidaway, I created a few landscape pieces using both watercolour and fine line pen. The idea of watercolour being easy to build and blend almost ties into the intentions of my artwork. I tend to reminisce about my childhood, as I am still young the most prominent and important memories I have are from the adventures I experienced at a young age. I feel that back then I was happier, carefree and innocent. It was a simpler time for me and though important, these memories are blurry in my head. I feel that by using a pen I am able to create simple, prominent lines and some aspects would have more detail than others which relates to my nostalgic memories. With the watercolour that I use, bright and vibrant colours are practiced for the purpose of portraying light and happiness that express the emotions I have for my childhood. The texture of the paint is very watery, smooth and blendable which conveys a meaning of change. One shift of the paper while it's wet can make the paint run, changing the colours and image. As with life in general there is this idea that one small change and impact everything though the things that have happened has led to where people are now, and personally I am privileged to be thankful for my upbringing and memories I have collected as a child. As with my hyper realistic pencil drawings, connecting to the same concept these are done in a lot of detail showing that my memory behind these objects are clear.

All of my pieces are quite similar except for few however they all connect to this theme of my childhood and my nostalgic memories. They are mostly based off of pictures that my father took throughout my life and consist of images of my family and I as well as the places I travelled to. Initially I wanted to portray my work in sections that show important places and people, prominent memories and feelings I have and other memories, this would take up 3 walls, one section on each wall. I kind of wanted to create an illusion of a timeline of my memories. One section would be small events I remember as a kid leading to important people and places in my life which then leads to the feelings of homesickness I have now. I felt that the audience would be able to have almost this kind of trailer of my life/memories. I thought this would make my art work more personal and meaningful to both the audience and myself.