My works focuses on the exploration of the unknown and imagined natural world. My artworks come from my experiences and imaginings in the environment and most have a scientific context. Art has allowed me to explore and develop my own personal aesthetic as I use a range of mediums to express my ideas and evoke an emotional response from the audience. Drawing is my favourite way of creating and expressing my ideas about the world beyond what we see. I enjoy working with a combination of Realism, Surrealism and Expressive forms to communicate the complexity of nature. Invisible Forces is one of my artworks that visualises the wonders of the unseen natural world. In this work, a life-like panorama of fungi growing is used to explore the beauty of microscopic natural life cycles. It includes my personal aesthetic as it involves detailed sketch of uniquely authentic mushrooms in rich textures and strong contrast.

 

There are many different styles of drawings to express the unseen world. The method I prefer to use consists of using black and white media to present nature as simple yet complex. I used black and white to create a sense of abstraction in the natural world. This is clear in Invisible Forces where I used a various of graphite pencils to depict realistic textures and fine details of fungi. By adding contrast and patterns, I drew tough skin of mushrooms caps and stems. This graphite drawing makes my work scientific and environmental. Then I completed my drawing by allowing the mushrooms to create a mono-print their spore onto paper. It was an experimental process which made my artwork more scientific and environmental.

 

Janet Laurence and John Wolseley’s environmental and scientific works have influenced Invisible Forces works. One of Laurence’s artworks, Veils of Tree, 1999 explores the concept of transformation of matter and substances. She layered transparent botanical images on big-scale glasses to increase an understanding about the nature, also deals the way in which human activities such as deforestation and soil degradation are destroying landscapes and disconnecting us from the natural environment.

 

“Working with living plants you become very aware of their being, their needs and internal processes.” (Janet Laurence, Art and Australia, Spring 2010, p.64)

 

By creating this work, Laurence was able to increase the awareness of nature and make connection between her artworks and the viewers. I was inspired this and interested in making environmental and experimental bodies of work that that deals with nature transformations. It was particularly clear when I was working on Invisible Forces. In Invisible Forces, I drew semi-realistic sketch of roots and mold spread over vast areas under the ground to open up an ‘invisible’ expansive, micro-view of natural life and to create human relationships with nature.

 

“The landscape in tree form imprints itself on the paper. The themes of the whole exhibition are encapsulated here, and are part of the larger human dilemma – do we humans listen to and move with the rhythms and dance of the earth and the cosmos, or do we separate ourselves from it and impose structures and systems to contain and control it.” (John Wolseley, 2015)

 

John Wolseley’s environmental and scientific installation, Heartlands and Headwaters inspired me to create representative work of the way nature itself is formed. Particularly, I adopted Wolseley’s unique mark marking technique. In Heartlands and Headwaters, Wolseley let watery elements formed themselves naturally into an installation to show how water shapes. Also, he collaborates with natural forms by releasing large sheets of paper and let them be frayed and nibbled by living organisms, bacterial and fungal spores. So, In Invisible Forces II, I grew fungi on sheets of paper and let them create their own colours, shapes and patterns. Then, I added fine sketches of roots and fungi to further enhance a sense of nature. A similar technique was used in Invisible Forces where I mono-printed leaves and took spore prints from mushrooms on my drawings. During the process, I also grew mushrooms and researched the variety of their forms, including scientific diagrams of their parts and stages of growth. I have chosen to use various mediums such as drawing, erasing, mono-printing and spore printing and this made my artworks environmental and scientific. Similarly, Invisible Forces were created to explore the transformation of nature and achieves conscious reflective awareness. It not only depicts the plants and fungi within a nature, but also giving indications as to how these environments are formed.

 

This original work, Invisible Forces influenced the Invisible Forces II installation. In this second installation,  I created detailed structures of microscopic fungi cells by growing mold on papers and adding details by twines, tissues and fine pen markings. This work is an experimental and scientific installation influenced by the first project. However, the first project used more mediums such as drawings, erasing and mono-printings, thus making the work more expressive. Therefore, it better represent my personal aesthetic.

 

My photography series, A Quiet Moment, which was created before Invisible Forces, associates the viewers with their memories, dreams and imaginations within rich colour, shadows, sound and movement. In this way, I created photographs and a video that focused on the emotional intensity of human experiences. The photography I have created are another medium I commonly use to express my ideas about this world, and form part of my personal aesthetics. I have incorporated a range of visual elements, including the use of light and colour, to engage the audience. The purpose of my photography installations is to enwrap the audience in the full force of emotions created when interacting with my photographs and videos. The combination of drawing and photography installations in my artistic portfolio reflects my personal views on the wonders of the natural world. This helped build the foundation of the Invisible Forces drawing. This series has also focused on the concept of Surrealism. However, I think there was a bit too much. Therefore, this influenced the amount of surrealism I used in the artwork, Invisible Forces. In Invisible Forces, I’ve placed more focus on the Realism of nature to better suit my personal aesthetic. 

 

After I created Invisible Forces, I then created East and West. This painting is a combination of Realism and Surrealism. I combined different Eastern and Western painting techniques to display an abstract yet realistic view of the landscape. I utilised the concept of emergence by creating a visual representation of the invisible wonders of the world. This is seen in my video where ink emerges onto a thin sheet of rice paper as I painted from behind the paper. This evokes emotions such as wonder and curiosity from the audience. I really enjoyed the drawing aspect from Invisible Forces and decided to continue on this artwork. Thus, in East and West I drew a landscape with kanjis and further wanted to develop my painting aspect, therefore did paintings of landscapes. Various thickness, tones of line were used to create a focal point. For example, in the Eastern landscape drawing, I drew fading out lines beneath the mountains not only to create a sense of abstract, but also to drag the viewer’s attention into my abstract drawing. In Western landscape painting, I used a long diagonal line of the pathway in desert to direct the viewer’s eyes into and around my paintings in the Western painting. In Invisible Forces and East and West, I use pencils, ink and black pens to make various lines and textures to simplify the complexity of nature, yet still emphasise on the fine details of what nature has to present. Although only two colours are used, by using different types of strokes, it sparks different emotions in the audience. I have used a combination of soft, hard, thin and thick lines to express the complexity and ever-changing characteristics of nature. This allows me to paint an abstract representations of the natural world.