Invented exoticism: the development of artistic forms and inlaid colouring technique to explore the aesthetics of the cultural uncanny in an individual’s visual experience with glass

Abstract

This practice led research explores the possibility of cultural dislocation intrinsic to my glass art practice. The research on cultural dislocation is explored through both my practice and viewers’ interaction with the major works created during the investigation. The development of Korean glass art in the late 1980s provides an important example of the influence of a universalised culture in the course of adopting, adapting, and assimilating it, and why the artistic medium of glass is still perceived as ‘foreign’ by some artists and viewers in Korea. The artistic aim in creating a vase form, by combining porcelain and glass, is deeply inspired by the history of the materials in Western and Eastern cultures, including the history of European (or Western) imperialism and the influence of the colonial legacy on the development of glass art in Korea. By creating a formal visual vocabulary that informs the possibility of expressing the cultural ambiguity of the material, the resulting artworks were made to deliberately not fit into either Korean or British visual culture. Instead the works were created to fit into a pseudo Korean-British or British-Korean image intended to challenge the individual’s projected expectation of another culture (derived from cultural stereotypes). This research addresses the possibility of highlighting the individual’s cultural stereotypes, cultural relocation and bicultural identity in art. Applying the results related to these findings to the ‘aesthetics of the cultural uncanny’ present in my creative practice, the research was directed by the following research aims: - To extend the discourse about the uncanny to my artistic approaches by identifying what the exotic implies for individuals, both in Britain and Korea. - To develop the use of the experience of the uncanny as an expressive tool within my own creative practice through the medium of glass introducing an unexpected juxtaposition by combining English manufactured porcelain elements. - To develop an artistic language with respect to cultural stereotypes within contemporary glass art by analysing individuals’ engagement with my artwork.