Arts Centre Public Art Project Brings Splash of Colour to Christchurch City
Bus. Stop.
17 – 30 August 2009 and 31 August – 13 September 2009

In the final weeks of winter, Korean artist Sukjoon Jang’s colourful art works will be making a splash across the city thanks to the Arts Centre’s artist in residence programme.

The month long Bus. Stop. project is the final stage of Jang’s residency project: eight works from her residency (March- April, 2009) and from her practice in Korea will be displayed in bus stop light boxes around Christchurch.  The works will move to new locations for the final two-week period.

Toyland (detail), 2009, Christchurch

Interested in recurring features of urban landscapes, Jang is intrigued by the way human employment and activity shape and change the look of a city. As a ‘documentary painter’ Jang captures a sense of place through her work as she connects with the history of public places. Her painterly arrangement of colourful photographic fragments provokes the viewer to rethink their understanding of the surroundings in which they live their lives.

In Bus. Stop. Jang is asking us really to LOOK as we wait for buses to take us around the city to our destinations.

Light is integral to Jang’s work and Bus. Stop. cleverly combines that requirement with existing elements of our city’s infrastructure—bus shelter advertising light-boxes—taking her work full circle, from the city to the studio and back into the city again. 

One of Jang’s New Zealand works, Toyland, features the brightly painted shop fronts of Christchurch shops and businesses. The Pak’n Save yellow, the Countdown green and the Beaurepaires orange and blue are normal to most of us; for Korean Jang, the use of such bright colours was both curious and novel, prompting her view of Christchurch as a ‘toy city’, made up of children’s building blocks.

In a similar vein, the Korean work, Flower Carriage Bar is made of the coloured doors of hostess bars and brothels, closed during the day and ignored by passers-by due to their unsavoury night time trade. A beautiful artwork for its tapestry-like appearance and range of candy colours, the artist’s critique of people’s interactions with the city is clear. 

Jang’s Toyland installation can be viewed in the SOFA Gallery bay windows.

For more information and images contact:
Coralie Winn
Arts Centre Artist in Residence Coordinator
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