Friday, March 10, 2017

A Child's World
acrylic and vinyl on canvas
70 x 40 inches

             In this body of work, David Diao recounts on his early childhood living in the Tsim Sha Tsui region of Hong Kong.  His handling of source material, in this case, a map of the region and the locations of his home, school, and church, disidentifies the inherent information from its original meaning.  While the map is presented accurately for the time, it is crucial to realize that TST has now been expanded upon, and this map is no longer accurate, giving the piece an inherent time and historical nature.  What is most crucial however, is the 1, 2, and 3 of the locations he designates as the world of his youth.  By juxtaposing the small scope of his "world" against the map of the TST area, he is circumventing each meaning of 'this is a map' or 'this is where these things are' and instead creating a comparison of perceived versus constructed realities.  In this case, the perceived being his world and the constructed being the TST area as thought of as a separate reality in the scope of Hong Kong as an entirety.

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