The Balancing Act

Considering the weight of the physical and invisible. See more here.

Plunging viewers into a dreamlike world of candy-bright hues and mind-bending physical performance, Kawita Vatanajyankur uses her dynamic video art as a springboard to explore the value and understanding of manual domestic labour.  Creating works that offer a powerful examination of the psychological, social and cultural ways of viewing and valuing the continuing challenges of the role of women; she undertakes physical experiments that playfully, often painfully, test her body’s limits – a challenge that is both unavoidably compelling and uncomfortable to watch. The alluring, luminous colours in her work are distinctive of the artists’ aesthetic and tap into a globalized and digitally networked visual language of consumption and instant gratification.

‘The Balancing Act’ presents selected prints from her across her oeuvre including the ‘Tools / Work’ and ‘Splashed’ series’, which examine textiles industries and industrialised work processes within Thailand. It will also feature the Australian premiere of a video from her latest series ‘Performing Textiles‘, commissioned and created as part of Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s Visiting Artist Program.

IMAGE CREDITS: (FEATURED IMAGE)  Kawita Vatanajyankur, Scale of Justice, 2015, single channel HD video. Images courtesy of the artist and Nova Contemporary Bangkok and Alamak! Project / Clear Edition & Gallery, Tokyo. (IMAGE ABOVE) Kawita Vatanajyankur, Shuttle, 2018, single channel HD video. Images courtesy of the artist and Nova Contemporary Bangkok and Alamak! Project / Clear Edition & Gallery, Tokyo.