Skip to main content

Stealing Patterns Back

Catherine Nguyen
Write About Art 6
The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...

Creativity will always be a fundamental part of the human mind. It allows composers to produce songs that people cannot help but listen to over and over again. It allows authors to write novels that keep readers in blood-rushing suspense. And of course, it also allows artists to create artworks that inspire the community. Yet, despite the increasing population, research has shown that creativity in children has been declining (Rettner, 2011). It has become a question of how to restore the imagination lost amongst the standardised testing and immovable classroom curriculums. The installation Pattern Bandits, at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), appears to be Los Angeles-based Australian artist Jemima Wyman’s scheme to instil some of that lost creativity back into the youth of today.

Deep in the catacombs of GOMA, where the Children’s Art Centre lies, Wyman has fashioned a psychedelic lair, custom-made for youth. When entering the space, viewers are bombarded by a spectrum of vibrant colours in the form of mosaics dominating the walls and the ceiling. After the sudden blast of colours, which contrasts strikingly with the white walls of the ‘adult’ section of the gallery, children—and brave adults—are given the opportunity to interact with activities of the slightly dizzying kind. 

The entrance, dubbed the Harlequin Hallway, is peppered with inconspicuous cameras that capture people and objects passing by and transform them into a live digital kaleidoscope displayed on screens. Elsewhere, materials, such as coloured, patterned and circular pieces of paper, lie scattered about for people to contribute to the Spinning Wall Mandala Portal. For this portal, visitors are invited to put together something to resemble a ruined record disk. These are then... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Installation view of ‘Jemima Wyman: Pattern Bandits’ exhibition, Children’s Art Centre, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014.

Installation view of ‘Jemima Wyman: Pattern Bandits’ exhibition, Children’s Art Centre, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014. Photograph Mark Sherwood, QAGOMA.

Installation view of ‘Jemima Wyman: Pattern Bandits’ exhibition, Children’s Art Centre, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014

Installation view of ‘Jemima Wyman: Pattern Bandits’ exhibition, Children’s Art Centre, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014. Photograph Mark Sherwood, QAGOMA.