Water and culture: Visualising dissolution and control, exploring water as imagery, matter and medium

Abstract

The idea of water – all-pervading and essential, fearsome yet controllable – has driven my studio-based research. What are the meanings of water in the contemporary world? How could I explore this motif using water as imagery, matter and medium referencing the painting traditions of Asia and the West? This research explores in visual form the idea that water is analogous to the flow of cultures around the globe. The resulting paintings evolved from a sense of loss and precariousness counterbalanced by an appreciation of the deep symbolism of water’s necessity to life on earth. Focusing on Asian landscape painting traditions, cross-fertilised with Modernist Western abstraction, I elaborate on the cultural connectivity between East and West through various artists’ work. In the integration of imagery and process, my work reflects on water and fluidity as metaphors for cultural connectedness and it is contextualised by tracing these confluences across history and societies. In this sense, Water and Culture offers a new channel for speculative thought on the subject of water and art.

The project developed from observation and research into water containment structures such as locks, dams and canals in China and Europe. This research acknowledges the political and social ramifications that ensue when control over this precious resource conflicts with community and cultural heritage. Influenced by the cross-cultural exchanges between Asian art and philosophy and Western art traditions and practices, the resulting body of work utilises artists’ water-based materials and technologies from both East and West to bring new perspectives to the poetics of abstraction. This takes the form of a body of drawings and paintings, predominantly on paper, which actively explore water as imagery, agent and as a vehicle for extensive process-driven experimentation.