Art Essay Introduction

As the curator of the 2011 exhibition, “Disparity’ located at the Gold Coast exhibition centre, I am pleased to present to you the bodies of work of contemporary artists; Bryoni Barr and Bai Yiluo. The following essay will explore how each of their work compliments the theme of this year exhibition. Baio Yilou’s pieces in his Body of work, Civilization, adopt techniques of visual language to communicate both the focus of disparity and concept emergence of emergence in his work. Briony Barr achieves the same as she uses natural urban landscapes as a canvas upon which she layers with purely organic lines that have little relation to each other but lots to do with the movement of the artist. The spontaneity of Barr’s artificial lines in contrast to the relatively permanent and structured developments of the city alludes to the exhibitions the theme of disparity and more broadly emergence. The curatorial thread that links the two diversely different artists to each other is their ability to unify concepts that are not typically represented in close proximity to each other. The following two articles on Briony Barr and Bai Yiluo will explore how these artists utilise aspects of their personal aesthetic to communicate their intended meaning and justify the purpose of their art.

Bai Yiluo- "Civilization" 2007 (Images)

Bai Yiluo

The installation pieces of Yilou’s body of work, ‘Civilization’ (2007) comments on the malicious relationship between those who labour at the expense of the elite. He communicates this through subject matter of manipulating objects synonymous with the ancient roman civilization, particularly using those that are representative of status. His work relates to the concept of emergence in the sense that he makes comment of societies emergence from a state of equality to a state of civil unrest as a result of corruption on behalf of those who abuse their power. Such relationship between these two states is described as a cyclical struggle forhumanity. His work embodies the emergence of disorder and then the emergence of turmoil to achieve the emergence of the fundamentals of humanity- justice and liberty.

In contrast to his usual photographic media, Yiluo has used an installation form of media to present his 2007 body of work titled, ‘civilization’. He uses tinted ceramic to construct the busts of aristocratic figures mimicking those of ancient civlizations. Bai Yiluo’s choice of media allows him to enhance his intended meaning of humanities cyclical struggle through a purely destructive approach. These objects are in no way manipulated in regards to their original force but severely damaged signifying brutality and violence to be an inevitable component of human nature in order to effect change; to emerge. The composition of the instillation creates thefeeling of plenty. The compacted space of 12 busts on stands unified by the entanglement of long pitchforks pierced through the ceramic busts gives a feeling of chaos and utter disorder. This creates a dense atmosphere filled with an intruding feeling of hardship and revenge.

Baio Yilou’s works within a socio-cultural context, describing the damaging effects of human nature; in this case the crave humanity has for equality and freedom from suppression. His unique and effective representation of historical and cultural movements would compliment the exhibition; ‘Disparity’ for his work unifies aspects of society (classes of people) that are at either end of the spectrum by nature. While this unification is not a peaceful one Yilou successfully communicates that the negative emergence of turmoil necessary in order to emerge society into a state of liberty. His work ties in beautifully with the focusing theme of disparity and the underlying concept of emergence.