Minaxi May // Pattern Clasher

'I am a pattern clasher. Mixing up designs in my clothing, my penchant is for the decorative. Combining collected boards, previous artworks and found objects with weaving, wrapping and decoupage, these works are quotidian, ornamental weavings – hinting at Maximalist, Zakka, and Expanded Painting theories.

This body of work continues my research into Zakka art – a Japanese term, explaining when mundane 'things' are elevated, selected or used to improve lifestyle – both the ornate and functional. Washi tape is an example of this. Japanese masking tape, traditionally organic materials with glue, imprinted with varied colours, patterns, symbols and pictures, has become a staple of hobby-craft – a Western commodity widely used for DIY embellishment.

In this exhibition, masking tape is elevated from a media of 'masking-off' to become the actual 'paint' surface. Through these materials, I am engaging with my affinity for stickers, stationery, global fashions and fads that permeate culture. Materials such as Washi tape hybridise and augment popular cultural artefacts.'
Minaxi May, 2019.

Minaxi May is an interdisciplinary artist, working primarily with sculpture, printmaking and installation. She uses a wide-range of approaches and dialogues to explore the interrelationships between the industrial world and her everyday popular culture. She is interested in representation and consumption – the remixing of consumer desire and response, within hybridised cultural moments. Minaxi has exhibited and undertaken residencies nationally and overseas including in Sydney and Switzerland.