Thursday, August 8, 2019

Flashback: The Making Of Ming Man




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Redfern Artsist Group was started in 2009 by Jo Tracy.
Jo is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Redfern in Sydney.


Ming Man, by RAG artist Jo Tracy.
Ming Man is another iteration of Millenium Man, which has been a regular motif in Jo's work, appearing in a variety of forms and genders and media since 1989.

Millenium Man represents Humanity as a whole, but he can also be representative of iconic individuals or humanist themes. The basic form of Millenium Man was inspired by the "baby" graffitti drawings of 80's Street Artist, Keith Harring.

"Ming Man" (pictured) was created for RAG'S 4th exhibition in 2011, "HOME" at 107 Projects in Redfern.
Ming Man started out as cardboard toilet roll tubes, held together with masking tape, then covered with many layers of brown paper and tissue paper, then decoupaged with prints of an original, Ming vase inspired design, then painted and lacquered.

Ming Man is symbolic of our complex relationship with "beautiful" objects, the status and importance we give those objects. Objects have culturally unifying and individually identifying purposes, as well as being symbolic of wealth and status.

"While working on the Ming Man figures I was pondering how our relationship to objects, the form that follows function and how our objects represent both what has remained and what has changed over time."