‘Breathing Life’ is an extravagant, collaborative public artwork created by award-winning artists and designers Victoria Garcia and Bayvick Lawrance. The work is an ambitious intersection of two artists, two cultures, two buildings and two creative disciplines, catalysed by the concept of ‘high fashion meets street art’.
Before establishing successful careers in the fashion industry, both Garcia and Lawrance grew up in South West Sydney.
Drawing upon his existing collection of textile prints and his qualifications in floristry, Lawrance adorned the building “as he would a model”. The hard lines of the structure naturally leant themselves to the graphic, tonal forms of traditional Fijian Masi motifs, which Lawrance enlivened with mirrors and other contemporary materials.
Whilst remaining true to her Filipino heritage and harmonising with Lawrance’s practice, Garcia drew upon her extensive visual catalogue and travels to create a work complementary to Campbelltown’s diversity. Garcia’s work is a reclamation of botanical illustration within a post-colonial context – the vibrant flora and fauna acting as a feminine intervention upon the banality of modernist architecture and traditional street art practice. The living elements within Garcia’s work balance intrinsic beauty and primordial chaos.
Speaking to the resulting work and the process of collaboration, Garcia says;
“An eclectic diversity of cultures is a big part of what it means to be Filipino, especially a diasporic Filipino artist.”
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