Artist research: Awi Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese Artist and activist, his work is heavy on symbolism and always with a political message.

My reaction to the project brief and visit to Newstead was to make a work with a political and personal message. Coming from a working class back ground and also with my own personal work history at the location and also looking at the current political climate and how the privileged seemed to avoid a lot of the risk of covid while the working class on minimum wage were taking on the brunt of the labour and the health risk.

I looked into to works of Ai Weiwei as I know he is a loud, political voice and I think the way he uses his art to highlight issues is very effective, whilst making thought provoking art that is also accessible for the lay person to understand;

A quote from a film he made about the making of his sunflower seeds he says "I want people who don't understand art to understand what I'm doing"

I like the sentiment of this, as I understand it his art is the vehicle for his message so he wants his message to be accessible to as many people as possible. With this in mind, as I know I'm making art for a public space and not an art gallery I wanted to apply this principle to my work.

I have chosen these examples of Weiwei's work below as he is using ready made objects of historical significance and adding to them to change their message, for example the coca cola motif on the an dynasty vase and auto paint on a series of Han vases, he is both defacing the object and transforming it, the object's history being as crucial to the message as the artists additions.

In my work I'm using vintage plates that are both person objects and linked to the Abby as I used them as part of my catering business when I worked there and have served cakes on those plates in that building. I've also transformed them into a canvass for my message.

In Weiwei's "Tiger, Tiger" he is looking at the makers marks of these vases, which is an aspect I have used in my work by using the underside of the plates and exposing the makers marks as a symbol of the hidden labours in the world we all take for granted.