Dolly Parton - Szabotage

This artwork belongs to Szabotage’s True Reflections collection where the face mirrors and captures everyday elements in a graphic form.

Szabotage depicts the development of layered stencils as a visual language, with iconic symbols of Dolly Parton and the USA painted beneath her portrait.  Each stencil is hand-drawn, hand-cut and positioned to create a collage of narratives.  

The entire collection is synonymous with the artist’s love and passion for Hong Kong, and its iconic imagery.  The use of local symbols highlights the artist’s interest in how a feature can be simplified to its most minimal representation, yet can be viewed in a number of ways depending on who is viewing the art. 

The individual graphic components layer up to comprise an overall image that breaks down a single scene into layers of references. Szabotage questions whether such motifs can still convey the associated cultural and contextual significance of the original object.  

The artist’s practice explores pre-existing images and familiar languages of cultural symbols and icons and hopes that with each piece, everyone’s personal experience of the artwork is different.  The icons and emblems are interpreted on a very individual level.