LANGUAGE AND TEXT: ARTISTS
KATE BEYNON
Background
Kate Beynon is of Chinese and Welsh parentage, born in Hong Kong in 1970.
She lives and works in Australia. Some of her artistic projects directly
and critically engage with biographical detail. She has an abiding interest
in calligraphy, cartoons, graffiti and Japanese Manga which she interprets
in installations, paintings and as well animation of her drawings.
Practice
Beynon has twisted chenille sticks into text and figurative images her version
of Chinese calligraphy is difficult to read. The shaped sticks cannot accurately
represent the gestural mark making of Chinese characters (and they are not
meant to as this indecipherability replicates her personal struggle with
the language and her immersion into basic Chinese language classes. Beynon’s
cultural lineage does not guarantee cultural access.
Beynon has created a series of works based on the character of Li Ji, a
traditional story set in Fujian, China during the Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420)
which revolves around a young woman who acts against social convention to
liberate herself and her family. Against the wishes of her parents Li Ji
volunteers to be sacrificed to a python that routinely terrorises the kingdom.
However, instead of complying with the sacrificial rite as women before
her, Li Ji slays the python and frees the kingdom from tyranny. Li Ji’s
secret powers can be seen a communicative expressive desire embodied in
the word which protects her, ensuring her well being. Thus, Li Ji is a super
hero.
Artworks
Li Ji Warrior Girl ( 2000)
digital animation of still drawings.
The work, Queen Li Ji (1996) is made from twists of chenille sticks
with fraying ends pinned to the wall in fragile and intricate ensembles.
The story of the main female character combines ancient and mythical powers
in a contemporary way recommending the strength and independent will of
women against their submission to oppressive roles.
Beynon first also works with another cartoon character, What Girl, who is
posed for action or combat. In the work, What Girl: What did You Say?(
1999), language becomes rhetorical, commanding rather than a question. Beynon
uses the super heroes speech designated beyond conventional speech and text
as a trace effect in language somewhere between onomatopoeia and nonsense.
Beynon uses both characters autobiographically and she has also used members
of her family in such works as Grandfathers Scroll (1996) which
uses chenille sticks to write a tribute and a traditional wall hanging with
a landscape on it.
Intentions
Beynon has a fundamental formal concern with writing. That is, the formal,
linear shapes and textures of text, rather than the reading and comprehension.
In this, Beynon returns to the ancient calligraphic convention that transform
writing beyond its particular meaning, written or painted, to an emphasis
on aesthetics.
Thus, the use of language in Beynon’s work tends to be talismatic,
a state beyond translation even beyond calligraphy where the word or phrase
is written only in provocation or as a wish to a deity. The words are not
intended to be read or uttered. Instead, they symbolise direct intention
or desire.
Critical Study
There has been some criticism leveled at the inclusion of Beynon in multicultural
exhibitions as neither she nor her mother have lived in China although she
has traveled to Beijing to learn the language. She believes that it is a
struggle to allow Beynon access as a Asian artist (As art writer, Melissa
Chiu also points out, the chosen artist’s ethnicity can also at times
be treated as a virtual substitute for thematic relevance.
There are instances of curatorial decisions based on ‘hybridity’or
‘asianess’, which are inconsistent. For example, artists have
been chosen because of a biographical account of where they were born or
their family history. Chiu is concerned that such interpretative framing
of the work of the Chinese Australian artists in terms of an explanation
of cultural heritage hinders its capacity for commenting upon anything beyond
cultural experience.
Although Stuart Koop recognises the curatorial problems outlined by Chiu,
he believes that, in the undeniable fact of having to shift sense from one
language to another to understand cultural difference, problems arising
from migration remain embedded in language. But beyond the topicality of
multiculturalism and globalism, Kate Beynon is simultaneously trying to
find some equivalent terms with which to express the continuity of life
experience. (p59 Koop)
References
Chan, D. The institutionalisation of Hybridity (keynote conference),
Edith Cowan University WA.
Chiu, M. Asian Australian artists: Cultural Shifts in Australia,
New HSC Support Document, p10
Koop, S. Warrior Girl Kate Beynon’s Tussle with Language,
Art Asia Pacific issue 29, 2001(Art and Language), p56.
gertrude.org.au
physicsroom.org.nz
pica.org.au
Article by Dr Dean Chan Can one say No to Chineseness presented at the Perth
Institute of Contemporary Arts 2003.