Peregrination, 2015 at the Volvo Art Loft. Supported by the National Art Council of Singapore, (NAC)

A Matter of Material

It was the sound of Paresh Maity's bells that welcomed me to Art Stage at the Marina Bay Sands. It set the tone, if you will of what was to come. It was almost as if those bells mirrored my excitement, ringing frequently, almost urging me on down the escalator to the lower levels. The persistent ring of bells gave way to an engineering feat, a marvel, something that made my sweet husband, not from the art world at all, say, 'Wow, that's almost like science!' And yes, it was. Zulkifle Mahmod's sound based installation using glass laboratory equipment was incredible. Not only was it delicate as it was made of glass, it was gentle in motion, glass tapping on glass, animated and robotic, yet beautiful to look at. 

Almost immediately, the idea of materials and how they lend themselves to the art work came to mind. Instead of simply reading images, one also needs to 'read' materials. In many cases, it becomes another layer of meaning one can use to understand the artist's point of view. As I walked through the booths, (and I didn't even cover half of them!), it was the shear plethora of materials that caught my eye. If Mahmod's sound installation didn't drive home the point, then Contini Art's Enzo Fiore definitely did with his piece entitled 'Genesis'. This piece consisted of a portrait of Andy Warhol made entirely out of organic materials and resin. 

From the earthy to the sublime, materials can create an atmosphere of wonder, sometimes bordering on theatrical. Sometimes, technical expertise becomes art, and artists become master manipulators of material. 

Illusory clouds on sheets of glass, images somewhat magically appearing in mirrors, metal sheets and glasses of water; impermanent things used to illustrate the impermanence of things. This is when materials matter.

That being said, I cannot ignore the tactility of matter, my own back ground as a ceramic artist almost insists that I touch things. It is part of how I learn. Some of the work at Art Stage just begged to be touched. Solidified globules of gold, a multitude of coloured fibres and threads, carefully crafted paper busts that extend like elastic and return to their original position of classical beauty when done. Like I said, I was a kid in a candy store! If you haven't already, do go. I've been, but I'm going again tomorrow!

 

 

 

Love Enough.

Do I have love, enough for the both of us

to use when you can't love me back.

Should  I know in that moment

when life comes in the way,

You will say something to the opposite of me.

And I-

will I have enough love to stay silent

to know that later,

maybe even today,

the tide will have turned.

The receding shorelines will swell 

and on that swell will ride love again.

Do I have love, enough for the both of us

to treat with care the words you say.

Your mouth, that forms each syllable, sometimes carelessly,

is still beautiful to me, with it's full, curved lip.

It is something to be savoured gently

despite it’s ragged words.

Will I have enough love to know

that these are just sounds said but not meant, 

like smoke rings, they will dissipate,

passing through your mouth and into thin air.

That your mouth has been taken over by some other thing.

That I will wait until your mouth is mine again.

Do I have love, enough for both of us

To love me when you can’t.

To stay whole and complete.

To be ready for you.

To be your home and mine.

A home where the breeze blows through freely,

sometimes smelling of night jasmine and sometimes of a black storm.

With waves, raging outside my door, 

the same door I have shut, but not locked.

Yes.

When I hear you knock sometime later I will answer.

There is enough love for that.

-Maya Bhalla, 2014

Travel Diaries: Peregrinating in Kolkata

Kolkata is a city of ghosts. I have said that before and I'll say it again. I mean it in the best possible way. It is an old, old city where the day begins in a slow, sleepy way with breakfast at 10am and lunch at 2pm. Afternoon siestas are a must and the lazy sun sets by five in the evening. The day is bracketed by the  muezzin's call to prayer at the mosques and if you pass by Hazra just after dark, the bells from the evening 'aarti' can be heard as well. As noisy birds fly from tree to tree to find their spot to rest for the night, it can, at best be likened to a crowded market street, with vendors, all screaming to be heard at the same time. For a day that begins slow, it does seem at it's lively best at night.

Amidst the chaos of the ever-changing, seemingly mercurial one way streets and parrot green rickshaws with tooting horns, there is the rumble of ancient trams chugging along the jam-packed streets. A landscape marred by lines; electrical wires like veins in the sky and dull metal tram tracks embedded into the tar roads. It is an  old city, where the new hasn't superseded the old, but rather indulged the old in a face lift of sorts with a new coat of paint or a poster, some naked light bulbs and perhaps a new iron gate. While the structures remain the same, layer upon layer of paper, paint, dust and propaganda have settled and peeled off successively, leaving one with a glimpse of the city's past.

I have visited Kolkata several times, but I only really saw the city when I looked at it through the lens of my camera. Early morning, scented with wood fires and slow, singular cyclists on smokey, mist filled roads, giving way to the 'horn OK please' buses, stuffed with people and bus conductors leaning out of the bus doors with their paper rolls of tickets and coin bags, 2pm and it's diffused lighting, gentle and golden with soft shadows across the race course greens, and evenings aglow with florescent lights, sharp shadows and vibrant colours. People in Kolkata don't mind being watched, mostly because they are watching you back- sitting, waiting and watching you... and life go by. As far as cities go, this one isn't contemporary or urban- nor is it ancient and quaint. It is gritty, dirty and yet manages to be adequately charming with its narrow lanes and tiny doors, ornate colonial architecture juxtaposed with crumbling red brick 'havelis', that somehow still manage to look interesting even if they look a tad bit haunted with their exposed but finely laid brick work. One may call Kolkata slightly shabby chic with it's bright blue and green painted walls and doors  that off set the daily laundry in ocher and vermillion hues that dry on balconies. It is an odd mix of older technology and raw man power with it's tube wells and hand pulled rickshaws, it's hand-crafted mud Durga idols side by side with the local butcher's block and a crate of live chickens- it is a city that lives side by side with its past, it's morning mists like thin translucent veils of time that overlap, sometimes allowing one to see clearly through them and sometimes creating a disjointed reality- like the clay kulhar lying side by side with the plastic cup in the black granite stone drain by the 'gurudwara', where an ancient man stirs a massive, seemingly bottomless, cauldron-like vessel of tea, and young health conscious gents ask for lassi, 'malai maar ke!'

** All images and text is the copywrite of Maya Bhalla

And it is on!!

Yes, it is on. After months of ideas thrown out to float on the wind and perish under our sceptical gaze, sketches, Woodland's thali and countless cups of coffee- It is ON! 

What does clay, photography, painting and video have in common? One very important basic thing, they are all tools of expression. An artist, no matter the medium should be able to take these tools and others, to create work that is both meaningful and relevant- art that is conceptually driven.  This applies so very clearly to the new work coming out in 2015, a collaborative project that has taken years to develop. Artist Joyotee Ray Chaudhury and I have been brainstorming over how we can use our creative energies to put out work that is insightful and important to us, without the economics of the art world coming into play. Art for art's sake is what we wanted to do. 

Joyotee is a painter and a photographer. She has been living in Singapore for the better part of two decades and has seen this country invent and reinvent itself over and over again. She is the eye behind the camera, the opinion in the photo and the observer of the social fabric around her. Working in tandem, optimising each other's skills and expertise in our chosen mediums, we have toiled in the studio, experiment after experiment to get it right- to create something new, something that resonates with the ideas in our head rather than remaining just a pretty picture or painting. We hybridised our methods of working, taking something old and expected, and returned it with a twist. 

We are excited, yes we are, because come ArtWeek 2015, we will be there. The Arts House Management in conjunction with the Goodman Arts Centre will be hosting our installation titled, 'Boundaries'. This exhibit will coincide with the week long ArtWeek celebrations in January 2015. 

As our work develops, we will keep you updated, so do join us on our journey as we explore this theme, pushing our own boundaries in terms of materials and our collaboration, both physically and mentally. 

You can find more of Joyotee's work and writing here.

http://joyotee.blogspot.sg 

http://www.joyotee.com

Supernova

Full blooms,
A spider's sleepy delight.
Pilous legs playing in caverns of red and maroon,
Drunk on a heady scent,
for an afternoon.

Time stands still- almost.
Each small motion, indefinitely stretched.

I forget myself-
Existing merely by my eyes and perception of smell,
Through the ebb and flow of permeating perfume.

Solitary, simply standing,
to breathe, to see
on forgotten hobbled legs.
In the presence of this moment,
I cease to exist

And the radiant blooms,
A supernova
A microcosm
A million lives in some minutes
A canopy and a carpet.

Then to leave,
As I must- so full in heart,
and yet, incredibly light.
Grateful,
for full blooms- past and present.

My tribe...

... Or, giving credit where it is due, or the appreciation of what was, or those women that have contributed to my growth as an artist and human being. I feel compelled to write about these women as not only were they each unique, brilliant and strong, but they helped me as a student of art and as a woman about life. That is not to say there weren't other artists, male artists, that did not inform my mental make up as it pertained to art, but, I feel enough has already been said about them.

Alice Neel

A feminist- unconventional, refusing to fit into any popular art movement, and so being true to what she believed art should be.  A grandmotherly looking figure; she was fantastically refreshing in the way she worked. While minimalism, post-minimalism, pop, expressionism and modern art, held the art world in their grasp for the bulk of the 1900s, Ms. Neel was painting landscapes and people. For me, it is her people paintings that hold the most interest. Notice I am not saying portraits, but people. Each painting is at first glance a painting of person, however it refuses to remain a surface exploration. Each work delves into the complexity of being human, leaving the viewer with a reading on the model as a person complete with thoughts, feeling, personality, depth and a history all of their own. No two paintings are the same. I am going to write about Alice Neel again in another post when I discuss the 'female gaze' and feminism in art.

*

This is a self portrait of Alice Neel done in 1980. In this painting, if she were clothed, we would see her as a grandmotherly old lady, except she isn't clothed and unlike most female nudes, which tend to be sexualised, youthful and objectified, she isn't. We see her with her brush and rag in hand. We see her looking directly at the viewer. She isn't shy. She sees us just as much as we see her. And when we do, we see her as she sees herself- a woman, an artist, complete, whole and confident.

Eva Hesse

"I think art is a total thing. A total person giving a contribution. It is an essence, a soul.. In my inner soul art and life are inseparable"- Eva Hesse**

***

Unlike Neel, who lived and worked a long career, Hesse was only 34 when she passed away from cancer. However, in that short time, she delivered a powerful body of work, much of which has not survived. Using fiber-glass, wire and threads, her work spoke of her delicate sensibility, adding a psychological fragility to the work, mirroring her own struggles with illness, both physical and mental. She juxtaposed opposites, big with small, soft with hard, geometric with biomorphic, painting with sculpture creating a quirky sensibility that defied the emotional coldness of minimalism.  Eva Hesse was beautiful and that came with its own set of challenges. In a world where most women were seen as subject matter or objects and muses that men used to make great art, her battle for acceptance and recognition as an intellectual, capable artist was even more challenging. Hesse, along with Neel, generate questions about gender equality and the biases within a profession that is supposed to nurture the social critics and thinkers of its time. 

As artists, we are all pulling from the same creative energy. Our expressions may be as different as our muses, but we are part of a chain, a link that existed before us and will extend after. In making art, these women contributed to generations down the line, even though in their eyes, they were merely doing something they felt compelled to do. In Hesse's words, her life and art were inseparable, a tribute to her honesty in her work, a view that I hold sacred as well.

References:

* picture from http://www.aliceneel.com/gallery/?mode=display&decade=8

** http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hesse-eva.htm

*** picture from http://jadegilchrist.blogspot.sg/2010/11/eva-hesse.html