“To Be”
Artist’s Statement:
Originally starting by looking at colours and how their wavelengths affect our brains and make us feel certain things, this project has certainly taken an unexpected turn. My original PLAN was to have colours to be a certain element in my major work, and reflect how desire is represented through these colours. But after numerous different experiments I realized those colours, or more importantly, the existence of our favourite colours fade as we grow older.
Things are often inspired and affected by our new found knowledge of design, reality and colour theory, no longer are we so naĂŻve or pure in our ways of exclusivity for our favourite colours. Now whilst it might not be a bad thing, it certainly reminds us of the passing of time, and is nostalgic if not sombre. This knowledge then led to a revisit into our old childish desires, tens of participants was included in this nostalgia trip down memory lane as we scrambled to make the most pathetic looking, yet the most childish thing that made us felt like Gods when younger. Simple pens were turned into helicopters, and cups were combined to make bridges to citadels!
Our imagination, unleashed and unrestrained from the everyday knowledge that is our reality, but left to frolic in the meadows fearless creativity.
It is with that in mind that ultimately led to the project that is my final body of work. I wanted to make something that reminded us of our old desires as children. The same passionate enthusiasm with every tiny detail, every insignificant object turned into a piece in an ever growing (and crazy) imaginative world.
Informed by this and possibly the imagination of millions of youngsters around the world, it isn’t a surprise that most of them would’ve played around with some of the most basic things found in our house and turned them into great swords and devastating magical objects.Â
This piece shows the childish imagination being the creator of a greater desire, and at the same time granting us our wish to become something much greater than ourselves. Turning even the most ordinary into the extraordinary, and granting us the power to always overcome evil before dinner time, or when that pesky bully comes ruining your fun.
The simpler times implied here shows our transformation from being someone insignificant to being someone much greater. How something so simple as a toothbrush can transform you into the most powerful and brave wizard of all. Yet as we grew, rarer and rarer do we pick up Mr. Cuddles to go hunting evil villains, take up our brooms to fight giant dragons, and more often do we ponder and worry about the looming shadow that is our uncertainty of real life.
I believe that these paintings shows desire in its simplest form; the simple desire to BE. Our choices of colours and our standards might change as we grow up, and might even not realize as all those childish things that once existed fades... but we will always remember our young, untainted and brave desires to be something great. Too often are we now concerned about what classifies as art, or what classifies as being productive, when our younger selves would have been all the wiser and told us not to worry and enjoy the things around us.
I want these paintings to stand as a challenge to today’s constant reminder of what you need, and what you should want. To inspire those who still desire something more, yet is unrelentingly condemned by the ones more privileged than them; let these inspire and remind us that once, we were small, and even then we still dared to desire so much more.
Let this remind us that even the smallest of things can make us feel big.