Emily Lazerwitz
Waiting for the Toad Diptych, 2014
C-print on gloss paper mounted on aluminium
Diptych - each panel 108 x 108 cm
Edition of 5 + 1 AP, number 2 of 5
£2,400
Digital translations of traditional art forms are a motif of Emily Lazerwitz’s work. Textiles and their use as modes of story telling are at the heart of ‘Waiting for the Toad”. The two pieces of the diptych are a binary translation of a traditional Hmong folk tale. The tale is akin to the tale of ‘The Frog Prince’.
What attracts Emily is the fact that stories in Hmong were passed down through textile clothes. Similarly, she is also fascinated by the fact that they did not introduce the written alphabet to their language until the 1950s.
The textiles themselves are a form of code that can be read. This is mirrored by the use of binary code in the work. At the same time, there is an oxymoron at the heart of these pieces. The hand-made digital works are made by a painstaking process of translation. The works seem to be purely aesthetic. However, the text and the story is still there. As Emily says, ‘The story is hidden in plain sight’.
This work is part of a series of digital prints that the artist has made.
