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Description
Construction workers are invisible. They are unseen entities, amassed across the city and put to work in anonymous drones, only to leave completed structures as proof of their transient existence.

Under the high-handed instruction of overseers and supervisors, they engage in brutal toil in uncompassionate environments with hard corners and sharp edges. Construction workers are used and controlled by the city as though marionettes, but no audience will take notice. Locals have become so accustomed to the presence of these labourers that they merely appear as street furniture and fade into the shadows. This apathy towards them, despite their indispensability to the city’s expansion, presents an intriguing art element.

Every megastructure is pieced together by hand, brick by brick and bolt by bolt, and it is this that inspires the use of collage. The accessibility of such a direct and literal cut-and-paste method also bears similarity to the seemingly uncomplicated, menial tasks of these blue-collar workers. Vinyl as a synthetic material also makes an apt reference to construction being a process dealing with fabrication and manufacture.

To escape the chaos of urban life, it is easy to slip into living with passive eyes that disregard the individuals around us - but we shall open them once again and hopefully embrace their presence through art.

Shadow Puppets
Vinyl sticker collage on woodboard
1.4x1.8m

12 colours of vinyl sticker-sheets used, cut into tiny little bits and manipulated into the final image. You can see the edges of the individual sticker pieces if you look hard enough at the detail shots. A super tiring process, but really satisfying results!

a previous work using similar medium and process:

and the accompanying WIP, which shows how the vinyl collage is built up:

Description
Construction workers are invisible. They are unseen entities, amassed across the city and put to work in anonymous drones, only to leave completed structures as proof of their transient existence.

Under the high-handed instruction of overseers and supervisors, they engage in brutal toil in uncompassionate environments with hard corners and sharp edges. Construction workers are used and controlled by the city as though marionettes, but no audience will take notice. Locals have become so accustomed to the presence of these labourers that they merely appear as street furniture and fade into the shadows. This apathy towards them, despite their indispensability to the city’s expansion, presents an intriguing art element.

Every megastructure is pieced together by hand, brick by brick and bolt by bolt, and it is this that inspires the use of collage. The accessibility of such a direct and literal cut-and-paste method also bears similarity to the seemingly uncomplicated, menial tasks of these blue-collar workers. Vinyl as a synthetic material also makes an apt reference to construction being a process dealing with fabrication and manufacture.

To escape the chaos of urban life, it is easy to slip into living with passive eyes that disregard the individuals around us - but we shall open them once again and hopefully embrace their presence through art.

Shadow Puppets
Vinyl sticker collage on woodboard
1.4x1.8m

12 colours of vinyl sticker-sheets used, cut into tiny little bits and manipulated into the final image. You can see the edges of the individual sticker pieces if you look hard enough at the detail shots. A super tiring process, but really satisfying results!

a previous work using similar medium and process:

and the accompanying WIP, which shows how the vinyl collage is built up: