Adapting Japanese theories of transience and imperfection to investigate decay, death and regrowth of our relationships with artefacts and events and nets Victoria Wong second place, Student, in our Eye Line drawing competition
Victoria Wong
Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA
Wong’s stunning triptych, as notable for its sheer size as level of detail, also deals with themes of a big scale. ‘Architecture is essentially an internalisation of society yet an externalization of ourselves,’ says Wong, quoting Lebbeus Woods, and her project ‘adapts Japanese aesthetic theories of transience and imperfection and applies them to the city of Hiroshima…Investigating the decay and death of artefacts and events, [the project] illustrates the new collisions of regrowing and reshaping our relationship with different agencies.’
In this strange space where the city’s past, present and future seem to collide, Wong has created three cameos that are highly evocative, not least for a precision that implausibly seems drawn out of the realms of pure fantasy. Shaikh was struck by the ‘brilliant’ levels of technical modelling skills on display. ‘The concept is a heavy one but the drawing bears it out – you can keep just zooming in.’ That sense of detail was echoed by Power who mused: ‘It makes you wonder if they didn’t look at Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights’ as an inspiration.’
The otherworldliness was picked up on by Kucharek who felt the level of detail ‘intimated the graphic complexity of Tarot cards at super-scale,’ and Fernie agreed. ‘What I love about this is not only is it technically proficient but the Tarot-like formatting is so interesting,’ she said. ‘The layering of meaning into the graphic and traditional use of colour with the text beneath references past culture but brings the future into the frame. It’s very compelling.’
Eye Line award winning drawings from this and previous years