Bali Cultural Exchange Residency
Donation protected
Hello everyone! As you may know I’m a visual artist based in Seattle, Washington. Recently I was awarded a residency in Bali. It will be wonderful opportunity to expand the scope of my practice.
The residency is operated by the Avalon International Academy in Bali from June 1st to the 15th. I will be working daily at the beautiful Bali Purnati Centre for the Arts.
So you might be asking yourself, "how exactly does this fit in with visual art?" Let me explain. I’ve been creating narrative paintings for much of my career. Now I’m exploring how narrative painting could work digitally. And out of all things, Balinese puppetry, known as Wayang Kulit, has been helpful with how to create my story.
My newest piece is a digital artwork that operates like a picture book. The viewer will be able to navigate backward and forward throughout the story. As the story progresses, the past images will physically change as the main character’s memory fades or exaggerates past events. The viewer can navigate back to the image to see that.
The project is an exploration of memory, psychology, and storytelling through a canon of painting. When I started creating this piece, I was drawing every scene by hand. I soon realized that I would have to make thousands of drawings. A friend suggested I look at “Feathers of Fire”, a Persian version of shadow puppetry to simplify my process. While looking into this, I fell down a black hole of YouTube videos which is where I discovered Wayang Kulit.
This was my answer! The simple, yet gorgeous backgrounds for the scenes and the beauty of the puppets are used for multiple scenes. For me, this means that I need to create only several backgrounds, objects, and characters that can be combined in a variety of ways digitally to create different scenes.
Studying under a master of Wayang Kulit in Bali will deepen my understanding of the practice and I will hopefully be able to apply the aesthetic beauty of the puppets to my own work. Once my project is finished, it will exist online, so people will only need internet access to experience this work. I hope this format will bring visual art to a wider audience. You can see some video (very rough) concept sketches here:
https://vimeo.com/184872257
https://vimeo.com/184936309
Also, while in Bali, I will be visiting with local painters to see their work and talk about their process. In Balinese culture, the arts are greatly interconnected with each other and are an integral part of life and spirituality. I can’t wait to learn more about this and share it with you.
Image: The Wheel of Life, I Ketut Murtika (b. 1952), Gouache on canvas
Of course, an international trip is expensive. This is where you can help. Any amount you can give, large or small, will go a long way to help out. Please check out the rewards for different donation levels. If you would like to help but can’t contribute, please feel free to share this link. Thanks so much for visiting my page. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
The residency is operated by the Avalon International Academy in Bali from June 1st to the 15th. I will be working daily at the beautiful Bali Purnati Centre for the Arts.
So you might be asking yourself, "how exactly does this fit in with visual art?" Let me explain. I’ve been creating narrative paintings for much of my career. Now I’m exploring how narrative painting could work digitally. And out of all things, Balinese puppetry, known as Wayang Kulit, has been helpful with how to create my story.
My newest piece is a digital artwork that operates like a picture book. The viewer will be able to navigate backward and forward throughout the story. As the story progresses, the past images will physically change as the main character’s memory fades or exaggerates past events. The viewer can navigate back to the image to see that.
The project is an exploration of memory, psychology, and storytelling through a canon of painting. When I started creating this piece, I was drawing every scene by hand. I soon realized that I would have to make thousands of drawings. A friend suggested I look at “Feathers of Fire”, a Persian version of shadow puppetry to simplify my process. While looking into this, I fell down a black hole of YouTube videos which is where I discovered Wayang Kulit.
This was my answer! The simple, yet gorgeous backgrounds for the scenes and the beauty of the puppets are used for multiple scenes. For me, this means that I need to create only several backgrounds, objects, and characters that can be combined in a variety of ways digitally to create different scenes.
Studying under a master of Wayang Kulit in Bali will deepen my understanding of the practice and I will hopefully be able to apply the aesthetic beauty of the puppets to my own work. Once my project is finished, it will exist online, so people will only need internet access to experience this work. I hope this format will bring visual art to a wider audience. You can see some video (very rough) concept sketches here:
https://vimeo.com/184872257
https://vimeo.com/184936309
Also, while in Bali, I will be visiting with local painters to see their work and talk about their process. In Balinese culture, the arts are greatly interconnected with each other and are an integral part of life and spirituality. I can’t wait to learn more about this and share it with you.
Image: The Wheel of Life, I Ketut Murtika (b. 1952), Gouache on canvas
Of course, an international trip is expensive. This is where you can help. Any amount you can give, large or small, will go a long way to help out. Please check out the rewards for different donation levels. If you would like to help but can’t contribute, please feel free to share this link. Thanks so much for visiting my page. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Organizer
Robin Walker
Organizer
Seattle, WA