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Writer's pictureWai Yi Chung

Week 3? Inductions and started working on something 3/10 - 7/10


Excerpts from th article about the Poor Door

Curated by Tinsel Edwards, The Poor Door is inspired by an urban housing development

that directed attention towards the dehumanising nature of the crisis. In London, planning

regulations state that every new housing development must contain a portion of

‘affordable’ homes. This development in Aldgate was built with two separate entrances.

One door for the rich and another for the not-so-rich. Wealthier residents were greeted

with luxury marble floors and chandeliers, while ‘affordable’ housing tenants had to

enter through a side-alley door. This worrying trend has continued, meaning that people

across London are categorised on a daily basis by the entrance that they use –

how very Victorian indeed.

In a humorously accurate take on estate agent signs, Edwards highlights the uncomfortable

reality that home ownership is a distant dream for most people in London. Resembling

protest placards, these signs encourage us to reclaim the power and control that has

been bought up by landlords and property developers. “It’s an interesting situation for

artists because they are often the people to go to the cheaper places and make them

thrive,” she explains. “Then gentrification follows. Suddenly these estate agent signs

spring up from the ground like weeds, disrupting the urban landscape.”


One of the artists, Lee Maelzer, catches my attention with her painting "Call It A Day" and her sense of humour.

And there is actually a mattress in the tool shed in my garden too! But I don't think I can get it out, clean it and bring it to the studio, nor do I want to just copy the staging in "Call It A Day" and take a photo.

There are other artists inspired by Lee, like Rachel Matton with her sink collection:

Inspired by them, I decided to add more element that relates to my house, like an object from it. But with limited time and skill (I am new to oil painting and haven't touched acrylic for almost 10 years) I will try to make things simpler.


I did another drawing of my kitchen after I found out about The Poor Door exhibition, with pencil on my sketch book, which I then used for production of a print in the Intaglio induction workshop (works pretty well) :

At that time there was a leakage in my kitchen and we waited for almost a week for the plumber to come and fix it.


But that drawing or that print won't do enough. I want to use some material that comes from the house. And also this is the "open-cut" unit where I need to explore some unknown realm like an installation, a sculpture or something. So I ask my housemate, Nelson to help me get something from the abandoned tool shed in the garden. Originally I tried getting a piece of wood from it, but failed. Instead we found a window which doesn't match any the existing windows. We got rid of the spiders and spider webs on it, cleaned it, and another housemate, Molly, and also Kasia from my class, in turns helped me carried the window back to the studio.

With quite diverse materials and existing visuals, I actually had no clue what I am going to do with the window. Nelson asked me if I would paint on it, I said yes but like what am I going to paint? Still, I bought a primer? Gesso?, applied to the glass, roughly.

Not knowing which direction I should go, I tried developing the map I drew last week on a material with some raw feeling. I took a scrap of bagasse board (sized slightly smaller than a piece of A4 paper) from the wood workshop and tried drawing with acrylic on it. The result was not satisfactory (see the upper part in below middle image), so I decided to cover the area with white paint and draw with a liner this time. The result was okay... (click on the leftmost image to enlarge).

Although it is interesting to draw on a rough surface, I think I will make a copy of this and take it to the Intaglio Silver workshop to print it. XD


Also, I took the caution cone to the studio also, to see if it can fit as a part of the whole set up.

Then I started painting the glass with acrylic. Yes... the question is, what to paint????

I had thought about the idea of "I've got that too" (because when I complain about the floorboards in my house, the selling agent told me that she has got that kind of floor in her home too, I was like "What???") And that can fit well with a window because windows are usually tinted, what you see is not the exact colour of the things outside. And also the glass is like a filter, you can put things on it and it filters what you see. Perhaps that's why the agent said she's got them too because she wears glasses (joking). But "I've got" what "too"? Then I took out my phone to see what I can "get" and choose a photo of a beautiful dawn I enjoyed on Monday, as that can be as good as an illusion.

And then I thought the glass was too big so I grabbed the big brush and add more water to the paint, to fill the surface with the lightest background colour. Then the dried gesso/primer on the glass started to shrink? and crumble? and that layer, now coloured was peeling off! I didn't know that water can destroy the gesso/primer...... or I have chosen the wrong primer...... Such a failure....... But still I continued to paint something until I thought I had to stop as I have awaken from the illusion that I can paint what I wanted to paint like that (and in a short period of time)

I peeled off some more of the gesso/primer, now one side can be seen through, and you can get closer to the reality......

I guess I will have to leave it..... This piece will be "Window with a view didn't work, leave it", or probably just "Didn't work, leave it" like Take the Money and Run.

That's all for now...









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