CHROMATOPIA was a moving image and sound piece with artists Ivor Davies and Ren Jie exploring colour and physical materials for an ‘Open Books Online’ group show at The Godown arts centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (‘BUKA BUKU’ Dec 2021), curated by Lienne Loy and team.

Combining stills, video, digital drawing and stop-frame animation. Ivor makes a folding book in his studio, attempting a descent into colour pigments.

To open the conversation with textile sculptor Ren Jie, Ivor shaved off two years’ hair growth and addressed it to ‘Miss Ren’ in Shangai. The third part of the triptych ‘From Blue to Blue-Grey’ focuses on Ren Jie’s book sculpture [image 4] which integrates Ivor’s hair using manufactured thread and blue felt.

The film ends in a quarry near Davies’ birthplace in Treharris. I added my own piano music.

’Open Books’ is curated by Mary Husted. This sequence partners seven Welsh artists with seven artists in Asia, and is supported by the China Academy of Art, Arts Council Wales, the Lottery Fund and Welsh Government.

Image 7: folding book photoshoot with David Sinden and Kate Woodward.

尽管现在时空距离变得更近，信息也更同步，但仍然有些东西是无法言传的。深层、微妙、隐蔽。想象也许比直接的沟通更能触及它们。

”Although the distance between time and space is now closer and information is more synchronised, there are still things that cannot be said in words. Deep, subtle and hidden. Imagination may touch them better than direct communication.”
- Ren Jie

Exhibition launch images courtesy of The Godown KL.

The videos and folding book will form part of a Salon de Refusés at the National Eisteddfod in Aberystwyth, August 2022.