HOLLOW FLIGHT
SOLO EXHIBITION (2019) @ SPECTRUM PROJECT SPACE, MOUNT LAWLEY, WA
Hollow Flight is a new body of work that explores our fractured sense of self in an increasingly digital age. The ubiquity of social media and digital workspaces, or the escapism of online gaming and streaming platforms has become mainstream amongst the developed world. Through convenience or sheer proliferation these virtual spaces have infiltrated our corporal lives stretching our professional and personal identity across two worlds. A division that has become unavoidable in a post-humanist era, and a divide that can generate tension and alienation surrounding how we perceive others and ourselves online.
Online platforms like gaming and social media encourage an expectation of excessive connection rewarding users that participate with their communities. The accessibility of these apps facilitates a constant opportunity to connect, relentlessly dividing our time and attention between two spaces (Rosen, 2012 & Turkle, 2011). This pressure to maintain an increasingly online presence can lead to an obsessive relationship between a user and their own digital identity, or with that of others’ (Rosen, 2012 & Turkle, 2011). An Instagram or YouTube personality can sustain a following of millions through a cycle of content-creation and viewership that seemingly feeds both groups simultaneously. When these almost deity-like individual broadcast themselves to such a multitude of anonymous onlookers, it is not difficult to liken this present-day dynamic to that of ancient gods and their worshippers. It is this notion combined with the tension and alienation of a digital age that has inspired this series.
Incorporating symbolism from Greco-Roman, Christian and retro-gaming and iconographies, See has used the painted landscape to explore a journey of large titan-like figures and their anonymous cultish followers. Envisioning an uncertain world of mountains, forests and snaking pathways the artists paints a story of disconnection amongst its inhabitants. The title itself is a reference to the fall of Icarus, a mythical tale that the artist links to the constant mission of online celebrities as they seek to rise in popularity.
Rosen, L. D. (2012). iDisorder: Understanding our obsession with technology and overcoming its hold on us. St Martin’s Press, New York, NY.
Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books, New York, NY
PERTH BUILDING STUDIES
SMALL SHOWCASE (2019) @ SPECTRUM PROJECT SPACE CABINET SPACE, MOUNT LAWLEY, WA
These painted studies are in response to Perth City's Churches and Cathedrals. Christian Architecture erected in a foreign and strange land by Western immigrants as places of worship and ceremony away fro home,. THese works are part of a larger series that explored the use of non-traditional colour palettes-often inspired by Western Australian bushland-to quickly render buildings of Perth's CBD.
VARIOUS 2019 STUDIES