Sunday, November 05, 2006

Work of Macao Hands: Watercolours by Carol Archer
澳門手作 : 區勵志畫展

“Work of Macao Hands: Watercolours by Carol Archer” opened at the Library Gallery at the University of Macau on Friday November 10. The paintings in the exhibition explore the rapidly changing city of Macao. These days construction is around every corner in Macao, and it is featured in some of the paintings in “Work of Macao Hands”. Although bamboo, tarpaulins and site-fences are represented, these pictures are not about the magnitude of construction sites or the looming presence of the structures and machinery that they contain. Instead, they focus on human-scale details such as hand-knotted bamboo scaffolding or the twisted rusty wire that secures a dusty blue tarp to a metal site-fence. The watercolour paintings in this exhibition also highlight the work of Macao hands that can be seen even in the “finished” urban landscape. Some paintings feature the electrical wires, pipes and wafting pieces of plastic that appear on the street frontages of some Macao houses. The ropes and hooks used to suspend produce, and the makeshift red lamps that light up market stalls, have been pictured in several works. The paintings in this exhibition are reminders that it is hands that continue to make Macao what it is today.

Also on exhibition from November 10 in the Library Gallery of the University of Macao is “Footstep: an installation by Carol Archer and Even Mak” (步足;足印 混合媒體裝置展覽 :區勵志及麥綺雲). In this collaborative work Hong Kong ceramicist, Even Mak, and Carol Archer combine paint on paper with glazed terracotta elements to suggest the sensations of the moving feet as they contact the ground. The work was inspired by an interest in the physical effects of training regimes such as ballet.

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