Two artists & two worlds merge in an international collaboration exploring a strange synchronicity, paintings, collaborative drawings &
evocative digital video artwork,
Anna Glynn from Australia & Wu GuoWei from China
The Parallel Dreams Exhibition opened at Centennial Hall, Peking University, Beijing China in June 2011 and was a great success with lots of local media coverage including newspapers, TV and online.
Parallel Dreams was included by the Australian Embassy in Beijing in 2011 as part of the Imagine Australia - the Year of Australian Culture in China. The aim of Imagine Australia was to enhance friendly relations, promote exchange and further mutual understanding between Australia and China.
The events showcased some of Australia's finest gems in performing arts projects and visual arts exhibitions.
Parallel Dreams exhibition at Shoalhaven City Arts Centre Australia 2010
The ‘Parallel Dreams' exhibition showed at the Shoalhaven City Arts Centre late in 2010. The artworks by myself and Wu GuoWei from China are based on our cross-cultural, international collaboration over the past four years. This exhibition on the themes of nature, childhood and the dream world includes a rich tapestry of materials, juxtaposing the two cultures.
It shows: works from before we met, works created together and new works created as a response to our strange synchronicity. I have also created a new digital video artwork ‘Seven Dreams’ which includes original paintings, drawings, photographs, sound and animation. This video artwork was selected to show in 2011 at the Albury City curated Digital Art Outdoor Gallery.
She drew a sharp breath, held it and tears welled in her eyes ...familiar figures and colours, fleeting dreams and memories... How can these art works have so much in common with her own paintings which were hanging at the same time in a gallery elsewhere in Shanghai?
This was the immediate response of Chinese artist Wu GuoWei on seeing Anna Glynn’s ‘Strange Memories’ paintings on exhibition in Shanghai in 2006. Since then the two artists have spent time together as artist in residence in Australia and China to try and answer these questions.
‘Parallel Dreams’ is based on this unique cross-cultural international collaboration between Australia and China. This exhibition on the themes of nature, childhood and the dream world includes a rich tapestry of materials, juxtaposing the two cultures. It shows the work of the two artists: works from before they met, works created together and new works created as a response to this strange synchronicity. Glynn has also created an evocative digital video artwork ‘Seven Dreams’ which includes original paintings, drawings, photographs, sound and animation.
"We have been working for five years on this collaboration. Two regional female artists from very different places but communicating in our own way. Over this time we have been assisted and supported in a number of ways: thru our great friends and families, thru strangers translating a sentence here and there, thru the Australia China Council whose assistance helped me travel to Liaoning Province / China in 2008 to work with Wu GuoWei, thru Nillumbik Council in Melbourne where we were awarded an artist in residence in 2008, thru Adobe who provided fabulous software for creating the digital video artworks, thru the great staff at the Australian Consulate in Shanghai especially Vivian Zhao and Christopher Wright who have always been there to help & also assist in communication, thru my lovely Mandarin teacher Gail Downton in Australia, thru Benson Qi and Grace, thru Rana Choi and Naii at Narana Studios in Shanghai, thru Robbie Collins and the Shoalhaven Campus of Wollongong University, thru Clara in Beijing who is always helping and translating emails, thru the crew at the Shoalhaven City Art Centre for supporting the exhibition and also to many others who I have not listed. We may have not mentioned all of you individually but be sure that we are grateful and thankful that you stepped forward to help make this project a possibility and not just a dream."