Daw on my back challenge
Production year: 2023
Mediums: Painting
This work uses a fountain as a starting point to explore the complexities of cultural dissemination and alienation through sketches and repeated redrawings. The creative process mimics the logic of “contagion.” The artist begins with a sketchbook drawing as the “prototype gene” and redraws it multiple times using tools like carving knives, rollers, and markers. Each iteration introduces new traces and changes, symbolising how cultural symbols are reinterpreted, transformed, and alienated in different contexts during their transmission.
This dynamic process continually deconstructs the “neutrality” of the fountain. The layered marks create a non-linear, multi-dimensional visual expression, uncovering the inherent contradictions and tensions in cultural dissemination. The work questions whether cultural symbols can retain their “neutrality” in circulation or whether they are inevitably shaped by hidden power structures. Using “contagion” as a metaphor, the work reflects on the alienation and shifts underlying cultural transmission. As a symbolic object, the fountain carries deeper reflections on history, power, and the postcolonial context.
Installation view, Daw on my back challenge, 2023
Acrylics,mesh, acrylic markers,rollers, tinfoil,carving knives.watercolor,pencils, Hot melt glue,spatula
whiteboard markers, 20 × 20 cm,sketch book