DESIGN TRUST'S 2024 DECADE GALA
-The Art of Doubling-
Design Trust's 2024 Decade Gala, themed "The Art of Doubling," celebrated its 10th anniversary by exploring dualities, dynamic duos, and double happenings at the cultural institution The Hong Kong Palace Museum. The husband-and-wife dynamic duo, Victoria Tang-Owen and Christopher Owen, were recognised as the Creative Collaborators and Event Design Leads, bringing their artistic interpretation of the theme and hand-painted artworks to set the scenography for the Decade Celebration.
With the ‘Art of Duality’ theme in mind, Victoria was inspired to develop a concept that showcases core traditional Chinese aesthetics with a modernised approach. Drawing from the concept of 凹凸 (ão tü), meaning concave and convex, we see the beauty in the juxtaposition of shapes and forms. Working with the concept of ‘Aotu / 凹凸’, she decided to reverse engineer and used AI tools to generate a symbolic handpainted artwork based on the Design Trust’s 10 Year Anniversary colour palette.
This process involved Victoria initiating a series of design prompts and refining AI-generated imagery, further engineering prompts to develop sequential images. As the visuals developed, some may recognise resemblance to the transitions of skyline and sea horizons found in Chinese landscape paintings. Her intention was to create an abstract work that would serve as a conversational centrepiece - a piece that represents duality of technique, aesthetic and message.
An artisanal studio in Wuxi realise the final AI-generated artworks using traditional painting techniques directly onto Italian silk velvet. Due to the delicate nature of the velvet, the acrylic paint is naturally dried and a series of 5-6 layers are applied to achieve the depth and intricacy. The resulting artwork provokes contemplative thought and encourages the viewer to interpret the expressive strokes of blues and orange; a colourful duality.
The final hand-painted artworks are a true actualisation of the ‘Art of Duality’ through the embrace of technology and traditional craft working hand in hand. Artist edition of 6.
