ShaoTung (Takita)

Curatorial Rationale

Through my artworks, I intend my audience to be aware of protecting the environment and the impact their actions bring to the environment. All of my exhibit pieces are carefully created to have a strong connection to my artistic intention and theme. My themes are constructed with three words “urbanization, nature and environment.” With the improvement of technology and living standard in most nations, humans started to ignore the essential things that support lifes on earth, which are air, clean water, soil and forests. Over the years, unpredictable amount of wastes have been produced, a lot of the wastes are due to the over use of factories, cars, plastic waste, which often leads to our environment filled with CO2. These factors corrupt the environment and nature, causing some species to become extinct and climate to change undesirably. My exhibit pieces aims to raise awareness for environmental protection and attempts to persuade the audiences to produce less wastes like plastic and CO2, and make a change to improve the world. Growing up as a kid that spent most of my childhood in the playground and natural sites have driven me into chosen this theme for my artwork, as I noticed that it was necessary for humans to understand the importance of nature to humans, animals and the Earth.My artworks are completed using varieties of medias. For example, painting on canvas, paintings on wooden boards, using recycled material to create a physical product and taking photographs of the corruption of the environment in our community. For my work of painting on canvas, a man that is filled with ocean and a whale swimming in his stomach is drawn in the center of the canvas, the background consists the Earth illustrate the corruption of our environment. This piece aims to convey the idea that humans is a major factor that determines the state of environment, therefore, we should work to improve it and not destroy it. I would like to specifically discuss about using recycled material to create a physical product. This art piece is completed as a tick tack toe but instead of using circles and crosses, I used cans to represent circles and plastic bottles to represent crosses. Initially, I considered using pine wood as the main structure of my physical piece, however, I realized that this would not help the environment. So I’ve chosen to use recyclable carboards and old newspaper as the structure, and used cans and bottles from myself and friends.I wish to exhibit my physical art work in the center, which is the artwork that was completed using carboards, newspaper, plastic bottles and cans. Because the materials used were all from recycled bin, expired or materials that are not environmental friendly. Therefore, placing it in the center of all my other works will constantly remind the audience of my theme for my artworks, and also remind them to be friendly to the environment. Other artworks will be surrounding this piece due to the material chosen for completing those pieces are not as environmental friendly, therefore, they are unable to be the core of my artworks. For the rest of the artworks, they will be placed according to the size, the larger ones in the center and the smaller ones to the side. Because I believe that being neat and tidy is an important factor to consider when attempting to protect the environment. Without being neat and tidy, a lot of things could not be properly valued and will end up being ignored. For example, keeping my work station neat, I am able to find what I need easily and not causing any unnecessary waste. A strategy I used to create relationship between my artwork and my audience was using and drawing objects that could be easily used in daily life, for example, plastics, cans and bikes. I intend to exhibit my artworks by placing “Bike on Trash Field”, which is a painting on wooden board in the center of all pieces, as it is the largest piece and it took up most effort and time.