"Signed
and Sealed" is a series of 30 Limited Edition Lithographs
by artist, Pat Elliott Shircore.
The
images were created by blending extracts from the original
documents marking the beginning and end of Hong Kong's
colonial history, the Treaty of Nanking (or Nanjing
as it is now called) of 1842, when China ceded Hong
Kong 'in perpetuity' to Britain, and the Second Convention
of Peking of 1898, when the area under British rule
was extended by lease for 99 years.
On
June 30th 1997, the date of the Hong Kong Handover, that
lease expired, the British renounced all claims to the
territory and Hong Kong was handed back to China. This
series of work pays tribute to Hong Kong's heritage and
explores the surprisingly harmonious mixture of signatures,
seals and the individual cultural mores which shine through
every page of the legal documents as an unwitting expression
of Hong Kong's rich multi-cultural legacy, both British
and Chinese.
Through
the fusion of images, textures, colours and tones, the
artist has created a truly dynamic series of pieces.
Pat has blended individual elements from the parchments
which contain a wealth of beautiful calligraphy and artefacts.
She
worked from laser colour copies of the original documents
which she found and researched at the Public Records
Office in London. The
series was traditionally printed lithographically onto
soft, hand-torn Terreus paper, with wide borders embossed
with the printer's imprimatur, and produced as a signed
Limited Edition of 97 pieces.
The
artist chose to effect the creative process on the computer,
the only way in which to preserve the individual integrity
of characters, seals, textures and chops. This
allowed her to do something which, until recently, would
have been deemed impossible, providing the ability to
capture the original ingredients of the documents with
complete exactitude, whilst allowing the flexibility
to manoeuvre images to the limits of imagination. |
