Diyan Achjadi and Shawn Hunt: Cultural Conflation
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Richmond Art Gallery 180-7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond, British Columbia V6Y 1R9
Photo: Paul Litherland
Diyan Achjadi, "Please," 2013
ink, gouache, silkscreen collage on paper, 22” x 30”
Vancouver artists Diyan Achjadi and Shawn Hunt explore art forms that have been appropriated from other cultures, often resulting in a conflation of sources.
Achjadi examines colonial histories and migration through her prints and drawings derived from a multitude of references that include 18th- and 19th-century porcelain paintings, textile designs, medieval bestiaries, chinoiserie motifs, Javanese batik patterns, and fragments of Dutch maps. By reordering these iconographic components in her meticulously made artworks Achjadi prompts a shifting of perspectives that encourage new readings of these multilayered works. Included in the exhibition are Achjadi’s new and older multi-media drawings and collages, lithographic prints, printed “toile” on Tyvek, and digitally-generated animations that have not been exhibited in western Canada.
Shawn Hunt, "Odalisque," 2014
red cedar, yellow cedar, horsehair 50” x 41” x 21”. Photo courtesy of Macaulay & Co. Fine Art. Collection: Kathleen & Laing Brown, courtesy: BrownArt Consulting Inc.
Shawn Hunt’s sculptural works draw from Western art history and combine with traditional Northwest Coast carved forms. The forms, carved primarily by Hunt, also include ones procured from his father, J. Bradley Hunt, a carver; they include components such as model totem poles, canoes, masks, panels, feast dishes and tool handles. In these new constructions Hunt reimagines artworks from the canon of Western art, reclaiming a dissected First Nations history. With one exception, Hunt will present all new sculptural works for this exhibition. Achjadi’s drawings and prints and Hunt’s new constructions provide a rich fusion of cultures that call forward complex and sometimes contentious histories.
Diyan Achjadi holds a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in New York and a MFA from Concordia University in Montreal. She has exhibited widely at galleries and film festivals nationally and internationally. She is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts and Material Practice at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Born in Jakarta, Achjadi is of Indonesian and Canadian parentage; she grew up moving between Jakarta, Hong Kong, London, and Washington DC. Her recent collaboration with artist Brendan Tang resulted in the exhibition Residue: Tracing the Line, shown at Malaspina Printmakers in Vancouver and Open Studio Gallery in Toronto and her artwork was included in the recent exhibitions, International Printmaking Biennial of Douro in Portugal and Pattern Migration at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Ontario.
Shawn Hunt received a diploma in studio art from Capilano College and holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia where he majored in sculpture and drawing. Hunt comes from a family of artists; his father is J. Bradley Hunt, a prominent Heiltsuk artist with whom Shawn apprenticed for five years, learning wood and jewelry carving as well as traditional design. He was born in Vancouver, BC and is of Heiltsuk, French and Scottish ancestry. Hunt is represented by the Macaulay & Co. Fine Art in Vancouver. Shawn Hunt’s work has most recently been exhibited at An Agreeable State of Uncertainty at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Shapeshifter, Burrard Art Foundation, Vancouver; Artifake, Macaulay Fine Art, Vancouver, Cindy Sherman meets Dzunuk’wa, Satellite Gallery, Vancouver; and Beat Nation, Vancouver Art Gallery.