Sydney Lunar Festival Banner Galleries
Every day, all day Saturday 21 January 2023 to Sunday 5 February 2023
Five Asian–Australian artists share what the Year of the Rabbit mean for them in a series of colourful, bright and engaging banner artworks displayed on our outdoor banner galleries.
Galleries will be in the following locations:
About the artists work:
Yasuko Toda: Rabbit Family on New Year’s Day
This work, Rabbit Family on New Years’ Day, repurposes 2 Japanese visual techniques from very different ages.
The 4panel comic (yon-komamanga), a spartan, almost haiku-like pacing often used to tell short, comical or poignant stories, and the sky gradients of Ukiyo-e, this time rendered with a hyperreal vibrancy.
Pei W Kwang: The Ever Changing Water Rabbits
The concept for the 2023 Lunar New Year was inspired by the characteristics of this year’s zodiac animal, the Water Rabbit.
The Water Rabbit is gentle, soft and approachable but also fierce and persistent in its ability to adjust to different situations. This is seen as parallel to the experience of many migrant Australians, including the artist, who grew up with 2 separate cultures and adapted to live in both worlds.
Si Yi Shen: Anew
Anew is a series of artworks representing growth, transition and connection.
From light to dark, the work starts with bare branches and then progresses to a mass of flowers, signifying a dynamic movement towards prosperity. Anew imagines a space that reflects our relationship with nature and growth as Lunar New Year celebrates the first day of spring in the Lunisolar Calendar, dating back to an ancient root centred around agriculture.
Nancy Liang: The Patchwork Rabbit
The artwork draws inspiration from Jogakbo, a style of traditional Korean Bojagicloth-making, and uses a collage of paper textures to quilt a patchwork of rabbits.
Hyun Hee Lee: Rabbit in the Moon
The concept for this banner design came from the Pounding Rabbit in the Moon story and traditional rainbow costumes called saekdong jeogori. The Rabbit in the Moon, which is 2 rabbits pounding the rice cake mill on the moon, is the central reference.
Listen to an audio description of these artworks.
Yasuko Toda
Pei W Kwang
Si Yi Shen
Nancy Liang
Hyun Hee Lee