Art and culture﹕Vital visual elements
【明報專訊】Hi, I am Chattie. I am a cloud. I have been travelling around the world and have seen a lot of people and places. Last week, after I had met Rainbowdon, I bumped into Rainie, his cousin. I was so happy!
Rainie is a lovely girl. Unlike Rainbowdon, she never says she is a superstar. She is the loveliest girl I have ever met. She is very sweet. When people are sad, she appears. She gently takes their sadness away when she trickles down the window. Lonely people open their windows and listen to the sound she makes.
I bumped into her when I was heading for an art gallery in Australia. We had a chat. I said I wanted to do a portrait of her. She was happy and she asked me how I would paint her. Hundreds of thousands of people had done so. Some had represented her with dots, others with lines or planes. I was surprised that people would use the three basic visual elements, dots, lines and planes, to represent her. How would I paint her? I wanted to paint her as beautifully as I could. I wanted to observe her for a longer time so that I could make a very good picture of her. I invited her to have a walk with me in the gallery, but she politely declined. She wanted to come with me, but she was not allowed to go indoors! Though she was interested in the exhibition, she didn't want to upset the security guards there.
I went into the art gallery after I had said goodbye to Rainie. Art galleries are places where you see lots of artworks. Pictures, sculptures and other kinds of artworks are displayed there. The theme of the exhibition I saw was ''Aboriginal Arts''. Before the Europeans arrived in Australia, aboriginal people had lived there for forty thousand years. They are called Aboriginal Australians. They have their special culture and I find their art to be very special. They dip a little stick in the colour and paint. A picture is formed with points, one of the three visual elements! I am curious about Aboriginal arts. It has been discovered that aboriginal pictures are usually about the aborigines' old and important stories. The elderly use such pictures to teach their children. In some special pictures, the patterns of dots are similar to passwords that hide some secrets.
It is really good to know more about this traditional art. I've made up my mind. I'll paint Rainie with dots. I hope I will see Rainie soon so I can give her the picture I've done and tell her how special dot painting is.
■Vocabulary Words
portrait 肖像畫
dot 小圓點
line 線
plane 面
visual element 視覺元素
exhibition 展覽
Aboriginal Australian 澳洲土著
point 點
◆Jeffrey Chan
•An artist, theatre director and English teacher.
•He is interested in breaking frames in his living, direction and teaching.
•A co-founder of Sparky Creative.
◆Travis Ying
•An artist, theatre stage designer, illustrator and registered teacher.
•He is interested in spotting arts in daily life and he cannot stop sketching at meetings.
•The creator of Chatties and Friends, a co-founder of Sparky Creative.
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