STATEMENT
SHEAU MING SONG
In exploring something lyrical
with ‘thingly’ character, my present practice is trying to transpose realities
(something real and unreal) onto a two-dimensional surface. Unprimed canvas,
masking tapes, and spontaneous marks are often utilized materials or elements
in my work. These objects occupy a non-specific space or time and thus can be
elastically employed on the flat surface of canvas and make fewer explicit
biographical associations to the image depicted. Nonetheless, by rearranging
such nondescript materials, new references or meanings can be generated by
virtue of further artistic alienation and transference.
Strictly speaking, the masking
tapes, as well as other objects I represent on canvas, are not the ultimate
images but the mediums and tools. Compared with the ‘authorial mode’ of
perception of conventional ‘Realism’, the ‘spectatorial mode’ of perception of
my practices not only annihilates the distance between the viewer and the
depicted image but also intensifies the tangible quality of the subject matter.
The feature of characterizing masking tape as the raw material is manifested in
‘Cage’ (2011), ‘Linen, Lines and Masking Tapes’ (2012) or ‘Sepia and Masking
Tapes’ (2012). The components of raw materials constitute the visual images
whilst the raw materials (such as paints, depicted object and tapes) seem to
become parts of ‘realities’ of the work. In addition, the quality of ‘uncertainty’
is relevant whilst the processes of painting are adopted as some of my painting.
The meaning of process is often seen as a series of actions that an artist
takes in order to achieve a result. For my practice, the uncertain and
imprecise way of constructing an image is also a mode of how to construct the
meaning of an image. That is to say, different potentialities of being a finished work are latent.
As regards to the sense of
incompleteness, the empty space of canvas positions as evocative as painted
surface. Some quality of emptiness could suggest something is fleeting, in
transition and imaginative which is the counterpart of the painted image. Most
importantly, the element of emptiness not only extends the perception of solid
image but also diminishes the rectangular nature of being a conventional
representation which is generally shaped in and accommodated to a four-sided
square.
(This statement is for my
participation in 'Focus Asia', Art Toronto 2012)
List of works –
‘Cage’, 2011
Oil and charcoal on Belgium linen,
80 x 100 cm
‘Abstract In 162 Centimeters’,
2011
Oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm
‘Linen and Masking Tapes’,
2012
Oil on Belgium linen, 80 x 100 cm
‘Linen, Lines and Masking Tapes’,
2012
Oil and pencil on Belgium linen, 80 x 100 cm
‘Three Rectangles and Masking
Tapes’, 2012
Oil and acrylic on Belgium linen,
100 x 80 cm
‘Sepia and Masking Tapes’,
2012
Oil, acrylic and pencil on Belgium linen,
100 x 80 cm
