Why does the pattern constitute a success in camouflaging into societies? This is what I aim to achieve with my final pieces upon evaluating artists from whom my work has been inspired from greatly and my personal favorites.
So what does camouflage actually means? Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Differences between camouflage and conform, is that conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to what individuals perceive is normal to their society of social group. This influence occurs in small groups and/or society as a whole, and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure.
Acknowledge as one of the greatest imperative living artists and voice to come from Japan, and a vital voice of the avant-garde. Yayoi Kusama is considered as one of a precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements. She became associated with the pop art movement due to the presence of being inspired by both Andy Warhol and Clars Oldenburg. She came into public’s attention after organising a series of Body Festival where she painted bright coloured polka dots upon unclothed participants through embracing the rise of hippie counterculture in the late 1960s. Kusama’s work consists predominantly on paper using inattentive natural forms in watercolour, gouache and oil. Her work began to be covered in surfaces with her trademarks of polka dots. “Infinity nets” as she quoted, were directly from her hallucination which she has suffered from an early age. Meanwhile during 1963, Kusama continued her series of Mirror/Infinity rooms, with these complex installations, purpose-built rooms lined with mirrored glass consists of neon coloured balls, hanging at numerous heights overhead the viewer. Lights were repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces creating an illusion of never-ending space.
In conjunction with Yayoi Kusama, I am also correspondingly inspired by an artist born in China’s Shandong province in 1973, Liu Bolin, who is also recognised as “The Invisible Man”. His work has been exhibited in museums around the world. Liu belongs to the generation that came of age in the early 1990s, when China ascended from Cultural Revolution and the launch of rapid economic evolution and comparative political steadiness. He created a series of “China Report 2007” on behalf of China’s ephemeral modern identity in response to the constant changing nature of Chinese society as it experience prompt growth and development.
Choosing photographs from official newspapers that covered stories of environmental calamity, infrastructural construction and demolition, and social instability and transition, Liu sought not to portray his own understanding of the changes China underwent that year, but to capture the authorized Chinese media’s demonstration of the changes to the Chinese public. Liu focused on the seeming contradiction between the Chinese media’s positive emphasis on the strength of the country’s military and the capability of its government and the downplayed coverage of devastating natural disasters and increasingly problematic social issues. By painting these media photographs, Liu surpasses mere historical documentation and explores the layers of acquired meaning within such images. He inspects the ways in which the real events showed can serve new purposes, fitting alternatively the agenda of official mouthpieces and the interpretations of individuals who search for a constant identity in a transitional society. Encouraged by his emotional response to the demolition of this site, Liu decided to use his art as a means of silent protest, calling attention to the lack of protection Chinese artists had received from their own government. Through the use of his own body in his practice of painting himself into various settings in