GMW

Gee Gen’s Statement for Humanimal

2009-04-29T13:34:00.002-07:00

Murmur of the Awakened Hush-Hush

Gee Gen illustrates an enchanting visual exploration of animal nature in people. Underlying people's personality is a slew of primitive animalistic instincts that lay dormant within their shell. In “Murmur of the Awakened Hush-Hush,” a series of pen-and-ink and gouache drawings, animal-like cartoon characters personifies the raw emotions that are beginning to stir from slumber. The patchwork-like intricate patterns are also indicative of the different components that form our mental makeup.

Pea-eyed faces combined with complex patterns introduce semi-animal and semi-human fictitious figures. These characters not only make up a new fantastical world but also reflect the complexity of human nature.

The 8.3 x 11.3 inches drawings and 10 x 10 inches wooden panels depict figures caught in frozen moments within the imaginary world and dig deep down into the unconscious of human being. Presenting raw emotions of mankind as animals in each drawing.

Michelle’s Statement for Humanimal

2009-04-29T13:34:00.001-07:00

In a series of 10” x 10” intimate ink and oil on panels, Michelle Kuen Suet Fung explores her fascination with hair. On each panel, a drawing of a human female head is meticulously rendered with ink in the Japanese manga style—large starry eyes, pink cheeks and a small cherry-like mouth. However, this is by no means a conventional portrait, as the woman is a hybrid human and animal form. The animal parts, be they moose’s antlers, tusks, butterfly’s wings or lion’s mane are attached to the head or face and reference a possible common shared use between the species.

Hair has long lost its practical use for humans, and has become useful as a display of beauty, status and sexuality. (Think Marie Antoinette’s notorious coiffure and the Muslim women’s secrecy with their hair.) Michelle’s take on hair goes well beyond its literal reading as hair for her can take on qualities associated with an animals’ special physical characteristics such as gigantic horns, colourful feathers, large ears or beautifully patterned shiny fur. These attributes not only reinforce the owner’s superiority in the pack, but also help them find a mate—essential to the group’s survival.

Female bodily hair is viewed largely now as unwanted. When was the last time you admired voluminous hair on a woman’s legs? Yet the lustre of fur is unmistakably sensual in animals and on women who dare to wear fur. We have no fur of our own so we must acquire it from animals; Michelle’s art takes this desire further as her subjects acquire not only fur but other animal features and wear them as trophies.

More than a simple anthropomorphism, the artist is visualizing the similarities and differences between human and animal in a mediated ambiguity that reframes the paradoxical repression of human hair on the female body in favour of the complexity of meaning associated with the display of hair on the female head.

Winnie’s Statement for Humanimal

2009-04-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

In this series of drawings, I am inspired by people's wariness of social responsibilities and their longing for the freedom that animals seem to possess. To gain the freedom of the wild, people will have to give up their civilization and sense of superiority over other beings. The surreal figures with both animal and human features embody this concept. Midway through its metamorphosis, the figure still holds the crown that represents the social hierarchy distinctive of human society while its stance reflects its readiness for its flight of freedom.

The fine lined pen drawings on paper with meticulously drawn details often begin as a shape or a cluster of lines that have been drawn subconsciously without real awareness. From there, I create a number of different surreal figures and settings. Recurring subjects within my drawings are beings with both human and animal features and two-faced figures. The two faced figures are a satire of the "honeymoon" period of a relationship. It represents the affinity between two different beings or concepts that have opposing elements but are interdependent in its existence. Drawing off from the colours of the seasons, the unsaturated palette of Vancouver’s bleak winter mornings emerges into my artwork. I choose to do smaller scaled pieces to draw the viewer closer creating a more intimate relationship.

Gegenschein Gee Gen Yiu

2009-04-29T13:18:00.001-07:00

Panda, 2008
Ink & gouche on panel
12 x 12”

Gegenschein Gee Gen Yiu always stands on the bridge between Eastern and Western cultures. Her works explores themes of nature, fantasy, and imaginary world. Not limiting herself from any art form, she has a wide artistic background: fine arts, photography, illustration, branding, web and graphic design, and music.

Gee Gen explains that her cartoonish illustrations tend to start out in freehand with pen and ink in large geometric forms. Gradually develop detail patterns and lines within the shapes. Besides her distinctive drawings, her tools drawer expands widely from the source of nature like pencil to digital instruments such as Photoshop and Illustrator.

Gee Gen’s works are inspired by a combination of her strength of feeling, music, love, and many more, which often triggered by everyday life and daydreams of the future. She is also addicted to all kinds of news and information – social, visual, political and economic to name a few. Gee Gen has always lived her life among design objects, photographs, and illustration books.
www.geegen.com

Michelle Kuen Suet Fung

2009-04-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just Hanging Out III, 2009
ink and pencil crayons on paper
13 x 17”

Michelle Kuen Suet Fung is part of a generation of artists raised in two cultures and for whom the world is home. Her work, often mistaken as Japanese because of its distinct manga influence, is a visual poem of Eastern aesthetics and Western values, that mediates the sensitive dialogue between the worlds. (She is Chinese.)

Michelle’s work reflects her own cultural context. The work embraces clashing styles, cultures and value systems in the sacred space of art where disparate elements can co-exist. The aesthetics is almost always a mix of the grotesque, the classical and the cute. The images themselves defy and confound boundaries and sometimes ask a lot of the viewer. Like the generation of Japanese female artists such as Chinatsu Ban and Makiko Kudo, Fung often refers to her childhood’s tender experiences as a source for her practice.

Fung is committed to the beauty of draftsmanship as it allows viewers at all levels to acquire something from her work first through their eyes and later through their thoughts and feelings. Her drawing is a glory of penmanship with its skilful and accurate rendering of the subtleties of her detail.

Michelle Fung has been interviewed by numerous organizations such as City TV, Omni TV (former Channel M), and Darizi Magazine (Hong Kong), Ricepaper Magazine and more. Her works are in private collections in Asia and North America, and The Canada Council Art Bank.
www.artatsnow.com

Winnie Won Tsuen Yiu

2009-04-29T03:08:00.001-07:00

Exploding Brain of Two-faced Boy, 2008
Pen on paper & digital manipulation
4 x 6”

Winnie Won Tsuen Yiu is a Vancouver artist who uses fine lined pen drawings to explore the world around her. Her works, inspired by the complexity of human nature, often project the dualities and ambiguity found in a relationship. Grotesque figures situated in romantic dreamscapes are recurring subjects found in her drawings.
www.wontsuen.com

Humanimal - Group Show of GMW

2009-04-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

Animals have always been a major part of the Eastern and Western art history, from the sublimation of the animal form in mythical literature (Pan the Goat-God or Medusa the Serpent-Goddess) to the symbolic creatures in folklores (the royal dragon and phoenix.)

This exhibition of 10 x 10” panels seeks to explore a bridge between the human and animal forms in a visual language that is appropriate for the three young Chinese-Canadian artists who draw heavily on their relationship with Japanese manga and animation.