Janice Wu's art elevates ordinary objects as if they were history in a museum
She examines what simple objects that generally go unnoticed — receipts, matchbooks — say about us
"The large part of my practice is just noticing," says Vancouver artist Janice Wu. She approaches material culture with an eye to the objects generally unnoticed — receipts, matchbooks, pieces of packaging — and examining what these simple things say about us. "A lot of the materials that I choose to render...they're so ordinary that they're overlooked."
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Wu says that for her, drawing is her way of understanding the world and by giving these simple items a more grand presentation she seeks to elevate them in a similar way that a museum would present a simple artifact like a bowl from a historic period. By applying this museum-like "pomp and circumstance," Wu hopes to give these ordinary objects beauty and show them as a sort of human language.
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