Who said colour-it-yourself has no artistic potential?
Note: All images related to the artwork courtesy of the artist, accessible from artist’s Facebook page.
I was skeptical when I saw the setup of Phoebe Man’s recent work Free Coloring if I Were.
The work is inspired by the #MeToo movement. The setup is similar to her previous work If I were (2014–2015) where people fill-in blank sheet of their thoughts if they were a ‘comfort woman’ survivor, a Japanese soldier or a spectator. For the current work, she prepared 3 colour-it-yourself templates for people to choose, each with a different image of a floral design:
- If I were a victim
- If I were a perpetrator
- If I were a bystander
Unlike the previous work, the setting was not a dedicated workshop, it was setup during an open studio where visitors could come and go as they please. The artist was on-site through the day and introduced the work at least once every 15 minutes and welcomed people to participate. The setting was not noisy but still somewhat lively. Some participants were focused while others made quick work of colouring the template.
The 3 choices are clearer enough. Based on her success from If I were, the current work can be understood as part of a series with a similar participatory design. My first impression was that it was nothing new (or so I thought), but that it felt like a timely and suitable use of the form considering the context of the #MeToo movement.
As before, the format facilitated an exchange of perspectives. From the perspective of dialogical aesthetics, this work provides an exchange of a serious and deeply personal issue with a level of privacy through anonymity.
Yet this piece is also clearly artistic in its colour-it-yourself design. And that is where the unexpected was found.
Colour-it-yourself templates and books are often criticized for being a mechanistic way of occupying children and a convenient way to do something artistic. I appreciate that colour-it-yourself can be a stage in artistic development for children or adult, but it should only be a transition since its potential is limited.
Yet looking at the artist’s Facebook weekend updates of the progress, it is clear that the templates became better used and in some cases its boundaries were subverted. This can be seen in the template for ‘If I were the victim’. On the first day, it was mostly a direct colouring of the template, except for one work which turned the template upside down to have the flower facing up and another one which used the shape of the flower as an elaborate dress of a female. Along with the drawings were affirming statements.
However, at the end of the second weekend, there were several more works that expanded beyond simply colouring it the template, such as drawing a setting or background for the flower. Overall speaking, the works coloured in the second weekend showed greater effort and care in the use of colour.
By the second weekend, many more people deemed it worthwhile to put greater effort.
This is my hypothesis:
First weekend: Most people followed the implied and familiar boundaries of a colour-it-yourself template. Very few people worked out of the boundary. Was it a lack of skill? I think not. I myself brought 25 art students. It was more likely a lack of motivation.
Second weekend: Artistically, upon seeing the possibilities demonstrated, several others participants thought out of the box to create their work. Concept-wise, the more interesting work from 1st weekend demonstrated that colour-it-yourself can be a channel for serious expression. Thus many more works from the 2nd weekend demonstrated the serious regard for this issue in the fullness and complexity of their colouring. Many more people deemed it worthwhile to put greater effort.
By using a seemingly childish form, Free Coloring If I Were provides a whole new dimension for participants’ expression not seem in If I were. The blank sheets provided in If I were did provide greater freedom, but as Nina Simon explained in The Participatory Museum, free expression is difficult for most people and scares them off because they don’t know where to start. Instead, limitations and boundaries make the participation manageable.
Within the boundary set by the colour-it-yourself template, not only were participants more ready to jump-in to the task, each completed work displayed also prompted the next person to ask “what will my version of this work look like?”.
This piece is not a full review of the work as the artist will be digitizing the individual works for the next phase. For me, I hope the completed work will retain some of the rawness of the originals so that the colouring strokes can convey the serious regards and effort of those who participated.
Reference [a good book provided for download by the author]:
