FutureFive New Zealand - Consumer technology news & reviews from the future
Story image
Kiwi artist features on the world’s biggest online art exhibition
Tue, 15th Aug 2017
FYI, this story is more than a year old

New Zealand artist from Auckland, Rewa Walia, will soon feature in one of the world's biggest digital online art exhibitions.

Her iconic digital-symbol works will be displayed on the Wrong Pavilion website page, with an entire page dedicated to her work.

The online exhibition will open to the public on November 1.

Walia says, “My works are all digital, which means they were created using digital medium on my tablet and have been sent for the exhibition as images to be downloaded for the online show.

“I have used social media symbols, such as Twitter and Facebook, quite a lot in my series as like most New Zealanders I am on those sites a lot, that's what inspired me to start the series in the first place.

“I was intrigued by Instagram and started an account with a regular posting of images.”

Walia attributes her success to the fact that her art reached so many people on Instagram.

This drove her to post more and more images to see the response.

Walia continues, “This increased my interest, and I was soon addicted to regular posts, I used a design software to create all the art and started posting them on Instagram.

“Within seconds someone from around the other side of the world was liking my work.

“This pushed me to further create works and post them, soon it developed into a series which was liked by top artists around the art world.

This is another example of the power of technology and how easy it was to make the world much smaller, and accessible through the internet.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have a tremendous amount of impact on our daily lives, it is thus only the natural progression that art would begin to reflect that.

Walia uses Instagram, and other popular brand symbolism, such as Mickey Mouse and McDonalds, to make a comparison of how these are also embedded in our lives along with technology. Walia saying, “The online exhibition website is supportive of technology and they want to create, promote and push positive forward-thinking contemporary digital art to a global audience.

“We cannot escape the growth in technology, its impact on culture is inevitable.

“I am excited by the new forms of expression and experimental thinking it offers, it is liberating to be able to express freely in the digital forum and get instant feedback from people.

The Wrong exhibition is the world's largest and most comprehensive international digital art biennale, with more than 1,100 artists are involved.

Walia has created nearly 100 digital artworks and her works have appeared in dozens of exhibitions.