Artist: Lynne Howarth
Opening: 4:00pm, 02/21/2009, Saturday
Date: 02/21–03/15/2009
Address: Rm204, Bldg.4A, 50 Moganshan Rd., Shanghai 200060 P.R.China
Gallery hour: Tue – Sun, 11am-6pm
Tel: +86 21 5252-2551
Vanguard Gallery would feature around 20 pieces works from British artist Lynne Howarth on Feb.21st. Lynne’s botanical art pieces are concerned with process and combine a hybrid mix of Western art practice(s), botanical illustration techniques and Chinese sensitivities. The artworks produced are also concerned with post- colonial/environmental discourse and histories.
About Lynne Howarth’s artworks
Text / Lynne Howarth (UK)
Regarding Post- Colonialism, much of my writing is reflective of a colonial time in the West and the new globalization taking place today – which many say is a new form of Colonialism. I deconstruct through my writing using Post Colonialism and Post Feminism too.
The work presented is however, more about my time in China as a Western person connecting with new surroundings and trying to convey this through mark making and drawing traditions -one cannot escape the power of a cultures influence as one soaks it up by osmosis. Also the huge influence of Chinese aesthetics through 17-18th and 19th Century arts and craft in the West has also been acknowledged in my work. The hybridity is part of the post colonial discourse too as it is half remembered cultural references to China and the East as well as the strong European tradition of arts and crafts. My work is an exploration of that and a reconnecting – especially since I lived in Ningbo a port city and Shanghai- which is why I was also interested in the courtesan culture and writings of Eileen Chang.
Colonialist European’s were collecting and collating the worlds floral and using it for colonial purposes- ie extracting something of use like rubber or something beautiful like specific woods for furniture. Flora/plant forms were also used in medicines and as exotic plants for middle – upper class gardens too. Kew Gardens was the epicenter of that collating of Flora in the West.
The sheet I am providing will explain this more- you are also right, my grandmothers family were in India and one section of my family were in the U.S.A from the very early days too. So many aspects of my family were involved in Colonialism. The woman I am writing about – Marianne North, was a traveller and painter of plant forms all over the world during Victoria’s reign. So the subject I write of has a lot to do with British colonialism, that I deconstruct through a Post Colonial discourse. I am primarily a ‘hybrid’ artist and my work also deals heavily with environmental issues and Nature.
My work is a celebration of something – a coming together, an acknowledgement to China’s huge influence upon Western art and how I admire it. It is about process and marks being intertwined. Even the fine pen and ink work is a fusion of Western art process and scientific botanical illustration, as it too, is a hybrid reflecting upon practice. So the main contribution that my work brings is ‘hybridity’ of form and marks.
