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On Seeing: Part 1

by Daisuke Chew

50 Images, a Brief Look at Visual Art

This is a curation of images. In a way, it is a kind of brief and partial history of visual art. I say partial, because these do not attempt to be comprehensive and what was chosen do lean towards what I like or appreciate.

I chose 50 images as it would make for a decent number and range. For the sake of this exercise I shall stick to the visual image. It could be paintings or drawings or etchings. Some periods and artists are left out. No Dada, no Baroque, no Byzantine, no Classical Rome or Greece, no Egypt, no Neolithic cave art. Not because these or others are less important, but simply to cover everything is quite impossible.

There is plenty here though. I start with the drawn manuscript of the Lindisfarne Gospels from the period before the Early Renaissance and continue through to today. From the more modern period I have left out video and computer art. For this grouping I want to stick to images made or drawn by hand.

As for photographs, those would be nice to have in a separate, perhaps smaller set. Some images are well known, others maybe less so. All images do have a certain quality, and many have fascinating stories or methods to them. If you see something and it speaks to you or interests you – that can be a starting point to learn more about where and who it came from.

There shall be 5 parts with 10 images in each set. This set is Part 1.

Continue reading “On Seeing: Part 1”
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On Seeing: Preface

by Daisuke Chew

This is a curated series of reflections, Scripture, images, paintings, and questions around the theme of “On Seeing.”

see

verb (sees, seeing, saw; past participle seen)

  • perceive with the eyes; discern visually.
  • be or become aware of something from observation or from a written or other visual source.
  • be a spectator of; watch.
  • discern or deduce after reflection or from information; understand.
  • ascertain after inquiring, considering, or discovering an outcome.
  • experience or witness.
Continue reading “On Seeing: Preface”
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The Artist is a Dog of Art

The Dog of Art
Denise Levertov (1923 – 1997)

That dog with daisies for eyes
who flashes forth
flame of his very self at every bark
is the Dog of Art.
Worked in wool, his blind eyes
look inward to caverns and jewels
which they see perfectly,
and his voice
measures forth the treasure
in music sharp and loud,
sharp and bright,
bright flaming barks,
and growling smoky soft, the Dog
of Art turns to the world
the quietness of his eyes.

(1979)

© Denise Levertov 

Continue reading “The Artist is a Dog of Art”

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Interview with Boedi Widjaja

Boedi Widjaja (b. 1975) was born in Solo City, Indonesia, and lives and works in Singapore. Trained as an architect, he spent his young adulthood in graphic design, and turned to art only in his thirties. Widjaja’s childhood urban migration due to ethnic tensions, living apart from parents and rotating amongst stranger-families, informs his investigation into concerns regarding diaspora, hybridity, travel and isolation, often through an oblique, autobiographical gaze. The artistic outcomes are processual and conceptually-charged, ranging from drawings to installations and live art. His recent accolades include being shortlisted in the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2015) and named one of eleven ArtReview Asia FutureGreats (2014). He recently completed a research residency that was supported by the National Arts Council Singapore at DRAWInternational, Caylus, France.

Dawn Fung interviews Boedi on issues of art making, displacement and faith.
Continue reading “Interview with Boedi Widjaja”

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How to take care of your mother

In memory of Wong Chai Kee

The most difficult thing about my father’s wake was being told ‘you must take care of your mother’. Over and over some well-meaning attendee would shuffle over, say the words and walk away. Coming from acquaintances or strangers, the move seemed Singaporean in the worst sense, like they were trying to meet ‘funeral wake KPIs’ of (i) show up (ii) walk past embalmed corpse (iii) offer grieving son advice to convey sympathy. I’d go so far as to say it was rude; the intimacy of sharing grief must be earned, not intruded upon. Continue reading “How to take care of your mother”

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The Voice

1950 The Voice egg tempera & enamel on canvas 244.1 x 268 cm
© 2013 Barnett Newman Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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What is ekphrasis? Simply put, it is the process of translating a work of art from one genre to another–a sculpture that seeks to capture the essence of a novel, say, or a dance that tries to grasp the energy of a kind of music. Literally, it is a way of speaking (phrasis) out (ek), of calling an object by name and in doing so, giving it new life.

This ekphrastic poem takes as its departure Barnett Newman’s Abstract Expressionist painting The Voice, and considers human beings and their environment as works of art too. Do we know who is calling? Continue reading “The Voice”

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9 to light

Nine months in a sepia-tone pool of cosmic spices

​of peace or absence or nascence.

Nine months, then everything exfoliates into light.
 
Nine months and the things that disappear remain,
nine months and hands are not for walking—

​you learn to put less pressure on the earth’s skin:

your tongue utters a thing of unknown

​and your being breaks from mine;

you make a pastiche of the world

​and I am no longer the world to you

—your laugh acknowledges this.

 
Every time you reach one horizon

​you fall into another.

It is not so much rebirth

​as it is a drowning.

 
(c) David Wong Hsien Ming 2014

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Intercession

i.m. Ken Jing

Grant him this: the lilting, blonding leaves
and a window with which to watch them.

Do not let St. Vitus visit. Let his gargles
be not on the floor but upright

and in front of a mirror. Let no child ask
why he flails like a fish on a chopping block.

Let no one question the existence of God
in his embryo becoming.

And when the storm of inflections comes,
let it come through the window

bringing the lilting, blonding leaves.

•
Continue reading “Intercession”

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The Smile in the Garden

It happened as I was hurrying through a tiny, litter-peppered park enclosed within an HDB precinct.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye someone walking towards me. He was a cleaner – broom in hand, South Asian descent. He slowed to a stop as he looked past me. I threw a furtive glance in that direction and saw a domestic helper with a fair toddler in her arms.

The toddler was smiling at the man, waving animatedly with twinkling eyes. The man hesitated before sheepishly waving back at the child.

In that moment, the man, the woman and I shared a quiet communion. We had witnessed a winter of oblivion shedding into spring, life sprouting from beneath concrete.

The child turned to look at the playground some distance away. The moment passed; our fellowship dispersed.

I slowly left that tiny budding garden, my heart blooming a thousand golden petals.

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Here’s the dirt

Anyone who’s been filthy enough will tell you: to be clean after a shower is an amazing thing. The sensation doesn’t last, though. Even in the most temperate of climates dust latches onto our skin, and we begin again the slow journey towards becoming absolutely, intolerably, filthy. Considering this, it is no coincidence that we refer to our sins and moral wrongdoings as ‘dirt’. After all, the condition of being physically dirty parallels the condition of being morally or spiritually ‘dirty’.

To Nietzsche, this matter of uncleanness was illusory, a mental construct. He argued that if humanity collectively stopped looking to God and started coming to terms with the evils of the world, human society would be propelled towards a truly transcendent understanding of what is good and ‘life-affirming’.

Continue reading “Here’s the dirt”