Motion Translator
Vivien Zhang
张月薇
Production date
2018
Object Detail
Media
acrylic, chalk and oil on canvas
Measurements
190 x 230 cm
Notes
‘Motion Translator’ is composed of three distinct elements: the ‘net’, the curved triangles and the barrier. The background is composed of numerous connected curved triangles, rendered as a “net” of gradient colours. These curved triangles have a name – “reuleaux triangle” – a shape formed from the intersection of three circular disks, each having its centre on the boundary of the other two. It’s a shape that can perform a complete rotation within a square and at the same time, touch all sides of the square. The flat rose coloured shapes represent the overlapping circles that give rise to the releaux triangle. The gradient net and metal ‘curls’ reference metal barriers found around council estates and police stations in London, where the artist lives and works. Even without knowing their source they evoke a bleak sense of dread, as well as creating a slightly disturbing illusion of two distinct spatial planes intersecting; the forms themselves and the tonal gradations create an illusion of depth that is contradictory and unsettling. In spite of her cosmopolitan upbringing and her current life in London, Vivien Zhang believes that her sense of perspectival space and her use of particular brush marks connect her with her Chinese heritage, including her childhood study of calligraphy. She believes that painting is more important than ever in this digital age, where we all move between real and virtual realms in a constant shuttling back and forth. Painting, she says, ‘provides a sense of the organic that we are relinquishing more and more to automatic processes. It’s such a physical medium and it brings many surprises to the process of making – it’s natural alchemy. Painting presents challenges and can take the artist to a place to engage with the work in a much more transcendental way.’
Accession number
2018.075