Shayne Phua
Further images
The title of this piece is derived from comments the artist received about its shape, reminiscent of the iconic Birkin bag produced by French luxury label, Hermès. The vessel is studded with pastry-shaped motifs, created from vintage moulds collected by Phua. (Refer to the text for the “Lazy Chinese bonsai” series.) The artist, who did her dissertation research on the gendered discourses surrounding the role of ornamentation in design and art history, positions her work within the genealogy of movements such as Pattern and Decoration. The latter emerged in the U.S.A. in the mid-1970s and is generally considered a reaction to the stringent, stripped-down language of minimalism; it foregrounds the vitality of ornament and the decorative, an aspect that Modernism had relegated to the realm of the feminine and inferior.
