From Sharne Wolff…
Light Maps is Bianca’s Chang’s first solo exhibition in Sydney. While not obvious at first, the inspiration and form of each of Chang’s works draws heavily on nature and mathematics. Artists like Piet Mondrian used nature as inspiration though Mondrian composed his colour grid paintings without any reference to calculation. By contrast in Chang’s hand cut Gold and Blue series of paper sculptures, nothing is left to chance. The ‘golden ratio’, a mathematical law (and it’s relationship with the Fibonacci sequence of numbers) is manifest in the natural world through examples from the swirl of a snail shell to the shape of hurricanes and spiral galaxies. This series owes its appearance to the same principle. Chang’s minimal sculptures imitate the balanced aesthetic perfected by nature. Chang methodically hand cuts each piece of white paper with a grid, scalpel and ruler – a time-consuming process requiring unbounded patience. In the place where the paper is removed from the block of pure white sheets, a combination of light and shade help bring the empty space to life.
Conversely in her Gravity Studies works Chang has left the composition to chance by dropping pieces of paper from above before photographing them. Rectangular shapes modelled on these ‘drops’ are cut from a single layer of blue carbon paper.
Until September 7
A-M Gallery, Newtown
Pic: Bianca Chang, Form in white (Gradients III), 2013 (detail). Paper in acrylic box, 4 Panels 45 x 54 x 2 cm (each) 92 x 110 x 2 cm (overall)
Courtesy the artist and AM Gallery.
