Dispatch

2020

Curated by Yves Lee

​

​

​April Challis is a New Zealand artist living in Hong Kong. Her work investigates the environment and pressures confronting it. The work explores a fading human connection with our surroundings and the outcomes this brings. In observing the activities and changes in the immediate environment much larger and significant issues are highlighted. A daily walk along a Hong Kong beach strewn with brightly coloured chips of plastic and sea detritus highlight the problems of consumer culture. The continuous stream of aircraft across the Mui Wo hills highlight the increased traffic cluttering the troposphere. In her work, April explores these issues through first hand observation, research and her imaginings of the forces at work.

​

Using combination of materials the abstract works are built in layers on canvas. She uses in acrylic paint, spray paint, oil stick, pastel, stencils, printing, stitching riveting, collages and other materials to build painted and drawn images. Bright colours support the dynamic nature of the subject and reference both the natural and human constructed environment.

​

The works for this exhibition are imaginings on the passage of goods through space. From the sentinel mass awaiting departure, to the invisible journey and arrival. The work focuses on the activity in the canopy above the earth, the troposphere.  Cargo hurtling through time and space, clusters moving in the same direction, drifting, darting, cross pathing then repeat.  The work visualizes the statistics of increased air traffic resulting from our “on demand” culture. The last four months have seen a halt and this pause is considered in the latest works.