Vicki Torr Emerging Artist Prize 2021

When I received the phone call I flushed pink with excitement. It feels amazing to have such good news after what feels like a really long dry spell. Hearing that Portal won the Vicki Torr prize this year made me buzz with energy and motivation.

Close up of Portal: The Closed Door during the Glass Armours Solo Exhibition, 2021

Portal will be the first of many in the jade series. Although I call it the jade series, it’s actually made of cast recycled glass; a process I’ve been experimenting and developing over the last couple of years.

Although glass is a beautiful material to work with there are so many areas/steps in the making of glass artworks that could create waste. So as I’ve learnt more about the process, I’ve become more in tune with ways to recycle/reuse material. Some of them involve crushing up one off moulds that have been fired and mixing them into fresh raw material for mould making. (A process I learnt from Dr. Angela Thwaites, who calls the new mix ludo.) And sometimes that involves looking around at the discarded and shattered glass lying around, and giving them a new life.

The last two years have really opened my eyes to the effects of climate change. As an artist working with cast glass I realize that it is impossible to be completely carbon neutral but I guess I want to make as much of a difference as I can, however little it may seem so this series is an important step in that direction for me.

Thank you to the Ausglass members for voting me in and keep a lookout for a new body of work!

First Solo: Facing the Fear

February, 2021. Opening night of Glass Armours at Gallery Lane Cove.

We must be getting somewhat used to how my entries here are generally after the fact (what can I say journaling can be hard and it’s always best to live in the moment when it’s happening right?) But in a way, writing it after the fact allows me some time to process and reflect deeply on all that’s happened rather than just give a recount.

I remember when Rachael Kiang (the manager and curator of Gallery Lane Cove) first approached me in September last year (2020) to invite me to do a solo exhibition at her gallery as part of a 4 venue program, now known as the Lunar North Confluence, which focuses on the practices of Chinese Australian artists.

I went in for an initial meet and greet, to see the space that was going to be allocated to me 5 months later and I remember the absolute excitement and dread that ensued in that week. I couldn’t sleep for days agonizing over how big the space was and how small my works would look in a 9 by 9 meter room. Especially considering how my worst nightmare as an artist is having a solo exhibition and not having enough work to hold up the space so I had been putting off having a solo for a really long time as I worked to develop a body of work I could be proud of. But the space was gorgeous and I had some time, 5 months was a little tight working with glass where one artwork could easily take half a year to make, but as they say time waits just long enough for those who use it wisely.

The next 5 months were intense.

I don’t think I have ever worked so hard in my life. Everyday I was sculpting, molding, polishing, hammering, carving and making; working desperately towards a deadline. It was liberating. Before then I didn’t realized how tied down I felt by all the proposal and submissions I was writing up (one big surprise about being an artist is that it requires an inordinate amount of writing and not just writing, rejection after putting all the time into a proposal), it was all eating into my time and energy for actually making art. It’s hard to be motivated when you don’t know how or where you will exhibit your work after you’ve made it. So now that I had a vision to work towards I felt free. Ideas flowed forth, it gave me a chance to dream again and motivation to work on all those projects I had on the back burner came in torrents.

But even if the spirit was high, sometimes your body just can’t keep up though I surprised myself with how many times I managed to coax my body past its limits, constantly telling myself I can rest in March when everything was well and truly done. That now was the time to do and I can crash into my burnout later. It’s amazing what a deadline will do for you. So if you’re a young artist like myself, give yourself a chance and take on an ambitious project that you care about and you’ll be amazed by how capable you actually are.

I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see all my work in one place and how much work it actually took to put it all up (there was a lot of shuffling around and considering and minds being changed). Working on this exhibition made me think of space in a whole new dimension and I am so lucky to have the help of experienced art installers and a curator like Rachael Kiang who understood the space intimately and could intuitively figure out how the audience would feel navigating the exhibition. I had general suggestions of how I would like the work to be seen - the Birdsong series a little segmented away from the other pieces and the Portal at the entrance of the exhibition there to both greet and challenge the audience to enter the space as it is the façade that guards my inner thoughts, which every piece in the exhibition is.

After 3 full days of install (where Jenna, Jo, my dad and I worked tirelessly), everything was up and I wondered the room alone in almost a trance. It was strange thinking that this was 5 years of work and hard to believe that these were all my creations that I have sweated, bled and cried over haha. There was an indescribable joy in my heart and I think it was a sense of belonging. A moment of ‘oh’. I don’t know how to describe it, I think if I did it would be gone.

The exhibition itself was an amazing experience but not for the reasons I expected. At the opening I saw curators, artists and art enthusiasts but I also saw people I had not seen in a decade, my friends from all the different social circles that I had engaged in at one point of my life came and for me it was like a colliding of worlds. I imagine it was what a wedding would feel like, a gathering of all the people you know who want to support you. I didn’t even know I had so many friends! I felt privileged to have created a space for people who may never have otherwise met talk and connect. Because what is an exhibition good for if not to spark conversation? What is a conversation good for if not to make friends out of strangers?

Glass Armours

NC QIN SOLO EXHIBITION

3 - 27 February 2021, Gallery Lane Cove

This exhibition focuses on the complexity of identity, separating our ego from our self into a physical manifestation of the heavy glass armour that we carry in our lives. Despite the project being composed of glass sculptural objects, my work is always about the humanity and the story of the piece, the object never quite the central subject matter but letting itself be shaped around an absent human subject. The cast glass armour is constructed with the cultural acknowledgement of the symbology and iconography of armours to Asian culture; as a mark of status and an object of familial and patriotic pride and expectation. By using glass to create the armour I render it ineffective in its mechanism for defence, with the aim of subverting its meaning and to explore themes of guilt, shame and repression that are often sourced from frustrated efforts to attain an ideal that is fostered by expectation, particularly within Asian social structures.

Persistence - The Strength behind the Beautiful

On the Opening night of Love Letter: Be With You , my Mum raised an interesting critique on my ballet slippers in the exhibition. (You can always rely on parents for that. Haha.) 

She asked: Why do the shoes appear to be so strong and borderline bulky? Why aren’t they more like the soft satin slippers that ballerinas use, elegant and exquisite – characteristics they’re known for portraying?
 

I wondered if anyone else had similar questions, so I decided to write up a more comprehensive context to the makings and concept behind the glass slippers.

For me, this is a work on the persistent strength of character. I’ve always seen ballet dancers as warriors, which I guess could be strange to think about at first but it’s more to do with their stoic attitude to physical pain and transformation of the mental limits into seemingly effortless grace. It’s also about the unseen struggle of the dancer who keeps silent about her pain to the audience. Ballet for me is an intensely feminine but strong type of art, it shows the mettle of feminine endurance.

I had made them out of glass, because glass has an indomitable and wild nature, especially during its casting stages. But there’s also an element of sensitivity and transparency and this is the effortless elegance that holds its spectators captive. When we see the finished product, we don’t see the weeks of effort that goes into each piece but only of the intrigue it presents itself in. That’s art. Beauty with Depth. But it’s a depth we can only feel.

Photo by Tyler Shields

I have included ribbons but excluded the feet. Even though it’s the physical body that keeps the shoes aloft and full of life, why is it missing? Is it just because it is more beautiful that way? Perhaps. But you would only be half right if you answered so. It’s because you never see the feet of the ballerinas on stage; you only see the soft satin that wraps like a medal around them. The slippers represent the prestige of being on stage, in the spotlight, in front of the audience. The slippers also represent what shields the audience from seeing what it took to get there. In a way, my shoes are trying to represent what is missing rather than what is there.                                                                                     

It’s a piece that depicts the struggle of the artist. Of any artist in any field. Because it is a battle for every artist to get there: on stage, in front of an audience. It is a battle to believe what you’re trying to do matters, to get up again every time you take a fall and it’s a process of saying, “This is not the end!”

The quiet before the opening. Dancers watching each other. Tension and energy in the air.

Photo taken on the Exhibition Opening Night by Mark Jones

I would like to thank everyone who came to the exhibition on the opening night and afterwards. It was truly a pleasure to meet all the new faces and get reacquainted with familiar ones. :)

I would also like to thank my Mum for inspiring further attention to the context of this series.

Each piece was developed to have its own character in the ribbons and colour scheme, allowing it to bring a different energy when it interacts with the rest of the “dancers”. Did you have a favourite?

Edit: Udee Online Magazine has done a feature on the Persistence series! It has been a pleasure getting to know Laura La Rosa (editor of Udee.) and talking more about the future of my artistic trajectory. 

Persistence 0 - The Humble Beginnings of Adopting the Artist Growth Mindset

This is just one of the stories behind the Persistence series of how it began and what I learnt from the process.

The series has empowered me by making me really adopt the practice makes perfect mindset; the growth mindset. The first glass cast was a complete failure, I had graduated from art school and hadn’t cast anything for at least half a year and my first cast Persistence 0, did not work

In my first mould the core was made out of paper pulp, which I was used to using while I was at art school. But while I was observing overnight the entire kiln started smoking. I knew it was because it was burning all the carbon out, however, I didn’t want to ruin the kiln. There was no more safety net of being a student and in my panic, before it had even reached 300°C, I took all the glass and mould out as fast as I could (once you take it out you can’t put it back in), everything cracked.

I was alone at 3am in the morning with a smoking and cracked mould, I was devastated! There were cinders everywhere, the studio was covered in cinders! I felt so bad for everyone around me because their work was covered in cinders too. And although Kate Banazi who works upstairs was really gracious about it and Kate Baker, my mentor, was really reassuring as well... I felt like a failure. The first one...the first cast had failed.

But the whole idea of Persistence and the reason why I named it that was to keep going, so I did keep going and made my second mould.

Aaand that didn’t quite work out either, the glass had started to leak when I checked it at top temperature. My stomach dropped and thoughts like ‘oh damn there is not enough glass to even cover the ribbons!’ raced through my mind. But, in the end when I had found the glass did, in fact, reach the ribbons it was just the tip that missed out. I was ok with that. I was just so happy that something came out! Later I managed to salvage it by creating a base especially for it.

Since then, I’ve been recording my process for each cast. Documenting the materials I use, the temperatures I go up to and how long I keep them there. Each time I find myself gaining more and more confidence and being bolder about experimentation. Each successive cast has added to my knowledge base and helped me improve my technique. I think I’m really getting to finesse that casting process of complex forms (there’s a future project on the horizon that I’m really excited about, which I’ll talk about in a later post).

I feel like I’ve grown into a person with more depth and confidence through this project. I’m not so willing to give up anymore. I used to have so many doubts about all sorts of things but all these failures have taught me that failing isn’t as scary as I thought it would be, in fact, they’re just obstacles and there are so many ways of getting through them.

It’s only a small bump and it’s not a slide straight to Hell (though it may feel like that at times). It’s even rewarding because you grow so much. I really love what I do. This process has developed me and given me a stronger outlook on life than I had before. I’m more willing and more proactive about how I approach problems.

Persistence I

Lesson: Not there yet, but we'll get there. :)
Recommendations: Read Mindset by Carol Dweck

Introduction : The Linear Story

Here I'll be posting updates on my current and past projects as well as insights on my process as I produce more work. There will be old and new concepts of the same project layered on top of each other as the project takes a life of its own or adopt the artist's through the stages of its creation. Many of the projects that I develop earlier in my career are very ambitious in scale and technique, not necessarily because I believed I had the ability at the time but because those are the abilities I wanted to achieve and for me those projects would propel me to learn as much as possible. There have been many obstacles along the way, but I have come to realize that they are the way.

My greatest ambition as an artist is to achieve Mastery; to have the versatility and ability to realize whatever vision or concept I have conjured up in my mind and put it out there to share with the world. 

The Human Spirit is a subject that I am constantly trying to capture in my works. Through themes of love, desire, failure, persistence; and what is most important to me is the theme of potential and evolution. My artworks also document my growth as an artist and a human being, telling a story when they’re read chronologically.

“Icarus” is about ambition, it was my graduation piece cast from my own torso with wings too heavy and delicate to fly. 

“Breath” is ironically about asphyxiation, it is the solidification of the air around the face unable to enter because of panic, of lack of serenity and ability to see oneself clearly. 

And my ballet series, “Persistence” is my answer to what came before, to the trials and failures I’ve had since starting on my artist career and deciding even if I do fail a cast or two (or more), I can still get back up and make it into something beautiful.