THE ISLANDERS

Charles Avery's The Islanders: An Introduction, which depicts the biology and condition in a strange island. What he did was that each creatures of the island are completely different from the creature we see in life. The research he has done is about philosophical propositions, trying to explore and expand creatures outside the universe, while envisioning their biological characteristics and appearance, combining aesthetics and biology as one. In his exhibition, we can see the sculptures of the creatures and drawing made by him are placed face to face, and the effect of the same sculptures of the creatures facing a large drawing is very vivid as if we were in a biological museum. Sculpture and drawing have a great many of details, as if the creature really exists, which is similar to Patricia Piccinini’s work Graham, the exaggerated shape and realistic details make people believe that such biology really exists. But Charles did more things, he even designed the relevant brochure for the island, he tried to use a lot of different ways to fully display the island. Although the contents of the island cannot be described by "complete", Charles still is making great efforts for this. In his own words, this is a life-long work; he will develop the island little by little all the time.

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What impressed most through his work is that he would try to accomplish the same goal with different means, which is a great practice that needs me to study. At the earliest term of MFA, I had been tried to use sculpture to express my subject, I had a few small sculptures to achieve my design ideas, but this method spent me a long time, and did not achieve the desired results, and then I tried to use the relief, drawing and painting to achieve my idea, which was very helpful to me, and also made me more clear about which techniques are more suitable for me so that my works can be showed more vividly.