I am curious about the power of visuals to touch, puzzle, perturb. Before a
language takes grasp on someone, what do they see? What is visible before there
are words to describe it? Once words enter the picture, do we see the same
things as before?
Are there universals in conveying meaning? Can visual symbols, colours, shapes
have a consistent translation across languages? Is there a universal visual
protolanguage that serves a basis for all writing systems? Are there
commonalities in what different societies immortalize through their alphabets?
My work asks those questions to talk about the vague, fleeting, uncertain yet
significant. I condense visual impressions, memories, associations into iconic
forms and grapheme marks.
I like an enigma of a written mark, the sway it holds over the viewers. It beckons
“reading” and “deciphering,” whether there is meaning or not. Like studying the
writing in a foreign language — one cannot help but wonder what the characters
signify.
My process orbits play and repetition — the composition, the tensions between
colours, empty and filled spaces and the movement — all has to unite in balance.
The image finds itself through this process, like growing a garden or an
archaeological excavation.
The final painting manifests the trials and errors that came with the search. I leave
a lot of the canvas bare to accentuate the rawness of this process. The chances
taken, the delicate balances of fresh gaze and thinking through are apparent in
the final piece, standing witness to the process of its own creation.
