Dodecarama | Christian Lee
Christian Lee Villanueva
Shelter Elsewhere fellow. September 2020 - February 2021
Dodecarama is a mural that, as its namesake die (dodecahedron), has 12 sides. The project lives on the surfaces of the posts at the top of the stairs. The impulse behind it stems from engaging with a part of the museum that you must look up at before it falls beneath your eye-level for the audience gaze to look down at. This power dynamic is subverted by the physical transition between spaces, meeting at eye-level briefly before the spectator reaches the top of the stairs. By this point, the floor has a shutter of familiarity from the preview on the stair posts.
Being already painted white, this set off a sense of horror vacui when juxtaposed with the surrounding use of space in the museum, such as the staircase walls leading up to the mural.
Each side of the mural is composed with the spatial awareness of what lies beyond the direction the spectator is facing. Going downstairs, for instance, the sides paint a picture of the garden and the exit door. To this degree, it’s an over-stimulating visual guide to the adjacent spaces, as well as blending into being part of them as a whole.
