SUSAN OLIJ

Haute Culture Magazine Interview

2011-11-22T16:14:00.001+08:00

22 November 2011

Interviewed conducted by Rose Bradford, Haute Culture Magazine via Skype from New York

RB: Hello, Susan so nice to finally catch you.

SO: Hello Rose, Good talking to you again, how are you?

RB: I am well thank you very much. It has been a while since we last talked.

So shall we start, I wanted to introduce you to my reader who will be seeing the works on your blog. This is their first time seeing you since you last visited us in early 2000, we are looking forward to see your progress.

SO: Yes, absolutely.

RB: So, tell me Susan, how did this exhibition come about?

SO: this exhibition came about because I wanted to return home, to re-introduce myself back to my own country, where I have left for for 20 years.

RB: I've seen some previews of the show and notice more color than in your work in previous shows - can you tell me how you've evolved into that?

SO: yes very good observation. I was working in strictly black ink for a few years, and this is the first series since 2007 where I began to reintroduce colours again. Two things, firstly, what I wanted to express is beginning to be limited by the abstract form. As if the language of that form has been exhausted.

Secondly the black batik dyes that I started playing with, came out blue on the rice paper and it was a beautiful regal indigo blue, which is a very traditional colour in Indonesian Batik. I then began to research Batik, and when I was in Yogjakarta, I met some batik dyers who started to dig into natural dyes used during the kingdom of Majapahit. Indigo was the first colour used and was also what became exported to the west and known as Delft Blau in the Netherlands. The Batik dyes organically became another form of home-coming.

RB: You've exhibited in several colaborative exhibitions, is this your first solo show?

SO: yes, this is my first solo exhibition in Jakarta. In singapore I had solo exhibitions some years ago where I was working on canvasses.

RB: How did planning an exhibit in your homeland affect the pieces you chose?

SO: Planning an exhibition in Jakarta perhaps didn't consciouly affect my choice of pieces, I had some reservation of the fast-paced superficial nature of the city and how quiet my pieces are.

This exhibition in Jakarta was quite timely, exactly 20 years since I left.

RB: A lovely homecoming - tell us about some of your path over those 20 year and how this show is a reflection of that growth?

SO: wow, great question, not an easy question to answer.....
What this show feels like to me is the sound of a single drum, it's the same drum that I beat ever since I can remember. the beat has changed over the years, sometimes sad, sometimes excited, but this show seems to reinforce that I am faithful to my art, even when it seems very few people hear it.

RB: Tell me more about that faith in your art. What do people hear when that drum beats?

Or rather what are you putting out there via those drum beats?

SO: I guess i wanted people to hear the same beats, i wanted them to hear the excited synchopation, or the mundane repetition, but they hear other things....

RB: such as?

SO: they sometimes hear nothing.
Sometimes they hear a totally different beat, sometimes the opposite of what I intended to. While that is all good, it took me a long time to accept that there's other projections, always.

Often when people ask 'tell me about this painting" I behave quite awkwardly with this question. I don't like to tell them what they should hear or see. I often believe when I am done with the painting, It's up to the viewer to project their own sounds to it.

My artwork is always about the futility of language, it's about the game we play with our mind, and it's always about never fitting in, and about distorting expression. To be short, the ineffable.

My paintings are not light. they hold a pretty significant weight. Burdened by intentions, expectations, and searching for meaning.

RB: Wonderful. What intentions and expectations do you have for this show - where do you want this show to take you next?

SO: i want this show to take me to the land of the light. In other words, I kinda long for some light hearted, playful place. The title is a little playful. I think that made the show a little less heavy.

RB: I agree! Thank you for your time and I look forward to the opening.

NEVER ODD OR EVEN a Palindrome title.

2011-11-21T23:27:00.001+08:00

Solo exhibition in Jakarta

2011-11-21T23:25:00.001+08:00

works on paper in progress of framing

2011-11-11T16:23:00.001+08:00

Framed works ready to ship to Puriart Gallery. The exhibition is almost ready, preparations are still under way and its not long now.

Bending over backwards for balance

2011-09-21T15:49:00.000+08:00

What a year, what a month, what a whirl.....!

As i am gearing up and preparing for a solo exhibition in November in Jakarta, the artworks are seen here being documented and titled. The research has developed into keywords that seem to distance myself from my older works even more, albeit still within the abstract realm. Still complex as it ever was.

The keywords are language, meaning, symmetry, artifacts and tradition.

What does it all mean, you ask?

The whole point of working as an artist and as an educator, of private or public establishment is to find the balance as a whole. That personal place where my purpose, mastery and autonomy are equidistance from the conscious and the unconscious. From the automatic reactive to the conscious awareness, from the mundane to the exciting roller coaster ride of the everyday.

What i discover about painting abstract is that I automatically gravitate towards tradition, while knowing very clearly that my aim is only for the ineffable to be expressed. Seeing the works through the years, I have realized now that I have to embrace the appearance of; for lack of better word Orientalism, that my artworks seem to embody. The aesthetic that reverberate is a strangely familiar one. The kind that usually needed to be 'challenged' and I do. Tho this time I think it's time to embrace instead of challenge.

A fellow artist Chua Koon Beng did this portrait of me in a 10-minute pose when our life drawing model didn't turn up for the session. It was fun, a little scary how accurate the bags under my eyes appeared in charcoal, and how it undeniably shows how imbalance I felt, how tired i felt, and how much sleep I potentially need to find the thin grooves between my body and my mind.

While teaching, planning and all sorts of other every day activities are happening, I was also illustrating more and I find the portrait to be a new fascination that I've never thought is possible. I remember in the past thinking portrait drawings and painting to be the farthest thing I could possibly want to focus on. Here I am focusing on portrait. Pencil, marker, gouache, watercolour, you name it, I used it.

She looks like how I feel inside.

Someday perhaps I'll exhibit fashion illustrations, instead of abstract inks or sculptural work in paper. That muscle is being flexed at once and felt growing every week.

Back to this ever so elusive balance. I thought about love, when people are looking for the so-called love of their lives, the person they are looking for is potentially someone with the right balance of everything they'd be comfortable with for a long period of time. Not chemistry, not abilities, talent, intellect nor physical appearance. All that will always be secondary and be less of a draw after the honeymoon and the first few dates are long over. I am convince it is all about balance, and yet it is also a never ending part of our search.

When we love our pets, we may have known this all along, the animals give us a type of balance that is nearly invisible. The kind that sits between the window sill quietly and the noisy traffic outside, the warmth of a snuggly hairy lump curled next to you and the sharp teeth and claw the feline comes equipt with.

Balance requires acute awareness, but that costs a lot more then I bargain for, since with the kind of obsessive characteristics that I often have, I tend to swing from one end to the other end, slowing down just enough, with small careful steps in the middle and perhaps for just half a day felt really content, but I couldn't stay there. That's probably why I am really bad at playing the smurf village potion game. I always end up ruining the potion.

I do love Ink!

2011-06-29T13:18:00.000+08:00

New ink work on paper from life drawing

3012 Post Conceptual Age (PCA)

2011-06-13T17:28:00.000+08:00

Long-lense PCA Mapping

Cove of Nue (between south Greigeland and persimmon Bay) 3012

Fruitcake River (Splits north and south Iguana island) 3012

Bastardfree Zone (north--east Papua) 3012

New World Series
Batik Dye on Watercolour paper
24 x 68 cm
2011

A little therapy- get some sleep!

2011-05-16T18:45:00.000+08:00

Therapeutic automatic painting shows signs of stress, lack of quality sleep, imbalance chi and perhaps suppressed sadness....

The price of wanting to remain in a strange unfamiliar reality

Behind my adult body, is a little child wanting no responsibility, wanting to go travel a foreign and unfamiliar land, wanting to meet new people, eager for new experiences good or bad, hungry for newness and adventure. Absolutely random new events precipitates my interest.

When I think of the future, planning roughly what my future reality looks like in my head, and all I want to do is run, not towards it, but away. I dearly prize the unfamiliar because it feeds me with more information. Thus I eventually have contempt of the familiar, often like a rash it comes on a hot sweaty days. I could only think of one way to soothe this kind of rash, I need to go away and find newness.

Everything unfamiliar, people, things, places, customs, behaviours are attractive to me. It textures my sincerely curious brain with bursts of spirited serenity and jostling with the knowledge already in it that strangely and wonderfully drives the exuberance of the spirit into many different new levels. I love the unfamiliar feeling I get coming back from a trip or a holiday in my own home. If only I can perpetually stay in this feeling.

One weekend I devoted myself to a group project that I know nothing about, I don’t know what my contribution will be, I only know that I am committed to have the experience under my belt, a brand spanking new one. That weekend taught me a great deal about myself and other people. I experienced a situation out of control. I took some responsibilities, and it turned out to be very grueling, scary, and discouraging. I didn’t listen to words said, I only notice non-verbal cues, which didn’t match the words. I kept quiet, and as they say – keep on trucking. I watch adults turn into children, I watch resentment and guilt building in a pressurized situation that are all self-created and self-inflicted. I see and hear disappointments, ego boxing, emotion carried by tired sleepless mind manifesting into anxiousness, passive aggressive struggle with disappointments. I also saw beauty in that struggle controlled by the knowledge that this is after all a group project and mutual respect must remain observed. Contributions in a group are so subjective and one cannot quantify nor know for sure what is balanced contribution, lines between too much and too little are barely visible.

The price of wanting to stay in an unfamiliar reality is larger then I thought. I realize all I want is a beautiful unfamiliar reality, when there’s an opportunity to be in the ugly, grim and unfriendly unfamiliar reality, I struggle with it. Ofcourse I do. What makes me human shows up as weaknesses, sadness, dissatisfaction, resentment, anguish, guilt etc.

So. this month I ask you to consider what your humanity shows you, what do you hunger for? What are you holding on to, too scared to let go? And what are the prices you pay for those attachments and needs? And is it worth it?

Next month I will tell you how I progress with letting one of my biggest attachment go, more mistakes I will inadvertently do, and the price I pay for acting on my humanity. ;)

Tragedy of Self Doubt

2011-05-11T14:12:00.000+08:00

The tragedy of self-doubt is a story that floats on top of my head, its huge and it covers me with it's shadow. I want a soft place to land when I decide to meander into the unknown. Sometimes I feel like I walk through people and places with my story like a blimp above my head, obscuring parts of me that's most distinct. I pass through friends, family and random people. Some chose to open their doors, and offer a cookie once a while. Others choose to hide in their own safety net called self-preservation, or fear. Fear is sometimes in itself like a soft place to bounce off of, a soft space riddled with awkwardness that after a while feels like a net of harsh surface that isn't comfortable, draining and unpleasant but yet it is familiar unpleasantness that I can live with. It's not nice but it's not that bad I always say.

A soft but unpleasant place to land is not an insult to my strength, it doesn't make me weak to want to remain there. And it doesn't matter what distant land I come from, everyone everywhere has a harsh net of discomforting familiarity.

It is almost amusing except I cannot find anything endearing about it. An awkward spirit, it is here once again, and it carries with it a bag of tragedy of the self. Sensitive pulsing doubt of the self.

Perhaps i am unable to give what I want from others....i have thought about that possibility.
Even though what I want is to land on a soft place, is this it? I step with trepidation, i question from here on all my motivations of social events, what is important in a friend, what must a friendship have? What can I forgive or cannot forgive, cannot take or can take?

I want to be good to myself and not feel demanding as a result. How do I be good to myself and be truthful to others, and the truth feel good to them? Is it really not possible to have both?

Suite101.com Review of B.R.FB exhibition at Instinc

2011-04-28T00:03:00.000+08:00

Brainwaves, Robots and Flying Bicycle Exhibit at INSTINC Gallery

Apr 25, 2011 Julie Maggiacomo Carrera

Three local artists in Singapore use non-traditional media to blend art and technology in exhibit open from April 21st-26th, 2011at INSTINC Gallery@Soho2.

Three prevailing artists in Singapore: Shih Yun Yeo, Susan Olij, and Rachel Law recently collaborated to create a unique exhibit where experimental works formed new opportunities of expression. INSTINC was founded back in 2004 by Yun, who volunteered the space for the project. Besides exhibitions, the gallery also holds workshops, artists' lectures and offers a residency program to invited artists.
Susan Olij's Brainwaves
Born in Indonesia, Susan Olij has been living and working in Singapore since 2001. Her recent project at INSTINC is a continuation of her 2009 series entitled "Where I stop and you start," which delves into the activity of the brain and what occurs within this complicated organ. Her prior instillation, which included paper and thread pieces are also on display at the studio. For these pieces, she got used to "letting go of the compulsion to be perfect," stated Olij, in a personal interview on April 21, 2011.
Her current drawings have the same theme, but display forms that represent the inner workings of mind and spirit through electrical impulses in the brain. "People fascinate me," stated Olij. "I like how people think. . . .drawing is like listening to how people are thinking," she continued. For Olij this statement is especially true in regards to a workshop she runs at her Olij Studio, for people of all ages.
The workshop is loosely based on a 1979 workbook by Betty Edwards, which currently has a revised edition entitled The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain [1989, Tarcher] . According to Olij, at the studio people are made aware of the talent they have, even with no prior ability to draw. She is looking forward to offering her workshop around South East Asia in the upcoming year. Olij formerly worked in fashion design and currently is a teacher in Design Faculty at the LaSalle College of the Arts.

Shih Yun Yeo's Robots
Singaporean artist Yun began her art career in 2002 after graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her recent project is a continuation of her "Man and Machine Series," which began after she realized she wanted more unpredictability with her art. This unpredictability was achieved through the use of robots and remote-control cars she purchased at a toy store. At a demonstration, she hooked-up a bristle brush to a small robot and let it do its work. Next, she set a small remote-controlled car to run through the paint. With the car, she has a bit more control and completes the painting after whitening-out certain areas that she dislikes. However, it usually takes a few sessions of painting and correcting marks before the process is complete.
Yun acknowledged that it depends on the smoothness of the floor, along with which brushes she uses to determine how the outcome will turn out. "Have to use eyes to sense how the composition should be," stated Yun on April 21st. These paintings are on display at the exhibit, along with a small book she put together which reflects the process of her work by whipping through the pages, entitled The Making of Man and Machine SeriesNumber One.
Yun considers her studio a "champion of collaborations network". She recently opened a second location at 21 Bukit Batok Crescent, allowing more room for her to work and allowing space for a second artist in residence. "My vision is for it to be a place for different artists coming-in on an international level," stated Yun. Her current artist in residence is Kuros Nekouian, an Iranian artist living in Munich, for whom Yun offered an exchange program. She'll be making the trip to Munich within the year. Kuros' upcoming show entitled "The First Cut is the Deepest," will take place on May 6th-8th, 2011at INSTINC, with an opening reception on May 6th, 7pm-9pm.

Rachel Law's Flying Bicycle
Law is a Singaporean artist who was offered a scholarship to study art at the young age of 16 in Singapore. Once Law graduated from the University of Melbourne and returned home to Singapore, she was quickly approached by other artists, although working in the media and communications field at the time. Law enjoys performance art and unconventional exhibits, especially one she organized entitled "Happy Birthday" from 2009 in Australia.
Law's flying bicycle exhibit is interactive, with the viewer pedaling to scenes from a Hans Christian Andersen 19th Century fairy-tale, entitled SnowQueen. The piece is a collaboration with other artists and set to music as well. The point of the piece is for the rider to experience the Sublime through human flight, which transcends over space and time.
Law is the main organizer of this exhibit, applying for and receiving funding. She is looking forward to studying at the Parsons School of Design in New York later this year, where she will be working on her next art project: an invisibility cloak. For another article on the Singapore art scene, please see article on the PantoneMyArt exhibit.

Brainwaves Robots and The Flying Bicycle- documentation of site-specific works

2011-04-26T13:26:00.000+08:00

Bloop

52 x 62 x 30 cm

PVC, Matte, Vinyl, Changing LED light

2011

Site-Specific Wall Installation

000

Variable size

Paper and Cotton Thread

2011

Making of '000' wall installation

Being Brave- an interview

2011-04-15T14:06:00.000+08:00

April 13, 2011

John Dickson from Art in Asia interviewed artist Susan Olij on her most recent works to be included in the group exhibition titled " Brainwaves, Robots and The Flying Bicycle", in a gallery in Singapore.

JD: What sort of departure or arrival did you invest on for these new works?

   SO: I always looks as the mystical and scientific approaches, both are as unreasonable as each other, and well complimenting as well as repelling. I do love paradoxes. So to answer your question directly, I depart and arrive simultaneously without end, the works is part of that continuum.

JD: How has your work change in the past 2 years since your last exhibition of an installation this scale?

   SO: I am always challenged by space and to work in limited space that are not at all ideal for large crisps paper can add texture to the result (metaphorically and literally), while the mental process is similar, unstable, unpredictable and anxiousness prevails. Two years ago I had space, this time I don't.

JD: As an installation and multi-media artist, do you consider change something to embrace or resist? Considering your previous installation, how important is lighting?

   SO: Although understanding intellectually the concept of change is inevitable in life, resisting change is something I normally do first, physically I resist when I sweat, contort my body, sneeze and situate my fingers uncomfortably between two very sharp points, and when I get paper cuts....aren't these all resistance in some ways?

Lighting is very important in my wall installation, and increasingly so for my other new works that lives within the confine of bulky and antique frames. The frames are a new medium, a part of the drawing that isn't so much for final presentation, rather I consider them a member of the drawing material. Lighting causes a lot of distress as well as a lot of pleasure when I plan my work around an existing wall. I don't enjoy the technical parts of it as much as the visual beauty of the result.

JD: How has travels and making work overseas change or benefit your practice?

   SO: Maybe it's all just an illusion I created in my head, but I find making work elsewhere other then my home a pleasurable activity, especially when I am confronted with the sense of loss, confusion, and people telling me what I should do. I find all these random elements a strangely important elements that I need in my practice.

JD: What do you hope to achieve in the next few years?

   SO: Lots more existing walls to install my changing installation works in, projects that included writing, sound and moving image incorporated and collaborated with these static 3D works that I do. And definitely lots more traveling and meeting people. I especially want to go to Tierra Del Fuego.

JD: Wonderful. Well, thank you for your time speaking to me.

END-

The Greatest Smell on the Planet

2011-04-13T13:33:00.000+08:00

Hugging the unpleasant

2011-04-06T13:32:00.000+08:00

Last night I saw 'The Power of Vulnerability', a brilliant talk by Brene Brown that hits the spots I've always had the suspicion is the way to go about living. While most of us knowledgable, and so-called wise people know the concepts theoretically very well, I have not heard this subject spoken in this kind of self-depricating and sensitive clarity before.

So after quite some time contemplating and rejecting the feeling of unpleasantness, and not knowing really how to embrace or allow bad feelings to give me a hug... these questions arises in my head :

Am I afraid?

Hell yeah!!

What happens if I lean on the discomfort?

It feels damn scary and my whole body braces itself in an almost cringe-worthy way.

What does that feel like?

Exhilarating, heart pounding, anxiousness

Fear is my friend, if I always face fear, repeatedly, as often as I feel scared, the more likely those feelings and nerves are pushing me, telling me this is an opportunity to feel courage, to feel a revival of a positive sense of self.

Courage also makes me less conscious of my faults, which I have lots of and produces every single day. Although not totally unpleasant, it is definitely uncomfortable, it is letting it all hang out, all the things I am unsure of is all out in the open, being presented as raw expression.

Pow! Thank you.

I hope you enjoy her talk as much as I do.

Group Show Invite

2011-03-27T22:55:00.000+08:00

Come grace our exhibition with your presence.

Brainwaves....

2011-03-27T15:50:00.000+08:00

Fountain of Love

30 x 38 cm

Colour PCV drawing

Grey Matte and Black Frame

2011

A Nod to Fried Chicken
25x 25 cm
Clear PVC drawing
2011

Secret Handshake

21.5 x 27 cm

Frosted PVC drawing

Old Wood

2011

Balancing on even-ness

2011-02-23T17:07:00.000+08:00

Test and prototype of Batik mobile series

A Single Banana, A Poem

2011-02-17T11:51:00.000+08:00

The Single Banana

I am often isolated, not really ripe, you see

I am casually benevolent

There are no consolations to my dark past

I cannot bequeath enough density to the hostility

Capriciously loud

My nose hurts sometimes, you see

I am alone, I know

Nutrition elude my self-importance

No one hears me

I cannot belong to any seedling

Seemingly wild, I bruise easily

I am unsure, you see

Of course you don’t see

Naturally I am sallow

Obviously I am dense

Clearly I do not need help

Alone-ness makes me angry

Non is more powerful then me

In aloneness I don’t reap sadness

Drama I seek but look at your own life

Terrible things happen to sad things

Sand arrived in the ears of many believers.

Do and you will understand

See and you will not forget

Hear and you will purple

Reincarnation & The Dialectic of the Multiple

2011-02-08T11:02:00.000+08:00

The moment I choose to stop feeling guilty, and decide to choose allowing many things to flow at once, it doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't need to become significant, it does not need to be good work, it can just be very fulfilling mini reincarnations.

Here's a sufi philosophy that says " Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be far sighted enough to trust the end result of the process". It relates to feeling anxious and impatient about why things aren't moving as fast as I thought they should.

Well here is what I take away from the quote that perhaps would be useful to someone else;

Whenever you feel like nothing is happening, things are, they are moving ever so slowly, and you cannot comprehend nor capture the speed so slow as if hardly moving. In an age where expectations moves faster and faster chasing the information perversely overloading us, your best bet for peace of mind is to just believe things are moving.

Duchamp knows what I am talking about!

Multi-productive mode under way in my little work-room studio. Multi-processing in the brain is under way as it never stops even in sleep, my dreams are multi-sensory, I pay attention to all things possible in which my brain can comprehend. What does that mean?

During breakfast this morning, I continued reading the Geography of Thought by Richard E.Nisbett, at one point the book was explaining the kind of naive dialecticism of the Tao, that is different from the western dialectic known through Hegel, and one can easily confuse the definition with the western one simply because my part-asian brain collectively and repetitively iron the layer of western thinking into the fabric of my thought influences. I for one tend to think I am not a logical but a practical thinker, and often what's practical to me, isn't logical at all.

What is interesting is that even though I prescribe to (and my brain fully exercised) the holistic way of the eastern thinking of dualism, i often expect the logical progression of thought to be presented by the outside world in trying to make 'sense' of why people do things they do.
Often the actions I see does not match the thought, and of course most of the time, the action is the only thing we can see.

So I can choose to live by theory or to live by practice, this means I can choose to live by the western logic theory in which most of my active thinking should be categorized by subject and thought of individually, or I can choose to let all the multiple layers of thoughts (which I deeply believe are all connected anyways) to mash up against the mesh-like filters of my brain and produce an outcome, which may not make any 'sense' to anyone...

Perhaps I may content on the outside world feeling the dialectic, even if ever so subtly.

On the other hand, what is definitely possible is that the outside world will keep missing the subtle discourse until a time much later.

Shapes

2011-01-24T23:24:00.000+08:00

In the midst of playing with ideas for my show, I started these colourful blobs of gouache wash, unfiltered and unplanned. And they become rather odd looking creatures, some kind of adorable, some kind of scary funny.

Here are some of them, named after what they remind me of.

Pasha ( a little too many blue curacao)

Spongy Al (A cross between Alvin the Chipmunk and Sponge Bob square pants)

Bill (bird on anti-depressant)

Fred the Rabbit, I must have channelled this baby for Chinese New Year

Charity Silent Auction for YOUR EYES

2010-09-27T18:02:00.000+08:00

I will be showing an abstract painting in this charity silent auction at The Asian Civilization Museum on the 15th of October. Unfortunately for those wanting to see the works, this is a private Standard Chartered Event so it's for invited guest only.

In the process- Lino/mono Print and mix media ink

2010-09-06T13:46:00.000+08:00

These print mix media works are progressing based on movement capture, blurred vision of anxious moments, and enui. The tension created are traced from movement (fan and ribbon tape) or smoke oozing out of a cigarette. Clarity immobilized.

Four Letter Words- A series

2010-08-30T00:50:00.000+08:00

Monosyllable used as euphemism, slang, derogatory phrases are mostly four letter word long, interestingly, these monosyllables have been showing up more and more in my paintings. These past few weeks it has been unstoppable, and I have started to consciously listen to this need and made a list of four letter words that' are' not an euphemism but that are linguistically connected to my need to coral the infinite movement of language.

What came up are very stretchy, viscous, sticky and sometimes rude, strong, and very telling. It started with three letter words overused slangs : wtf, omg...

Thoughts germinates and asking why this is here, and why now?

oh my word

2010-08-25T03:52:00.000+08:00

milf

mofo

omfg

omg

wtf

Caviar

2010-08-24T01:40:00.000+08:00

To Lino with Love

2010-08-23T21:40:00.000+08:00

Lino printing is a lot of fun, takes a little patient, and precision. Very satisfying and beyond words on expanding my practice. I think a little happy dance is in order.

These are first test prints. With a combined process, the works can expand with a mid layering with less and more pressures. The photos are quick sketches, no where near well lit, and is warped. These are only for effect documentations. I am very pleased to get to this point, It has definitely been a wonderful directional weekend after months of artistic constipations.

Back by the Books

2010-08-22T15:40:00.000+08:00

I continued on working in my sketchbook and decided it is a good space to work in, because it felt like I am not expected to make finished work, that all the things in a sketch book is a study, and it doesn't have the attachments of thought expecting the emotion that follows to be me 'having made good work'.

Artists such as John Copeland and Art professor Gary Brown are featured here as examples of 'artworks' that seem to have a finished feeling to it, and although within a sketchbook, the quality has a study quality to them, unrefined, yet the exact thing is what makes them feel finished.

Here's what my sketchbook(s) starting to look like. Ignoring the fold completely, I let the work flow out of me, and these pieces seems to like text as an underlying background. It feels good to see a series starting to form up.

These feels like the beginning of my new series, haven't got a clue what it'll be called. Who cares at this point, when flow happens, I paint. I don't see any reason why text (title) need to be thought about, maybe later when I've got a full spectrum understanding of where this series is going, I'll give it a title.

Enjoy!

Edward Hopper's Nightmare

2010-08-08T15:11:00.000+08:00

Edward Hopper is a nice contrary to abstract painters like me, he's slow, he plans for months, makes preliminary sketches before painting and I bet he's a really anal precise type of painter.

This is his most famous painting amongst the series, called the Nighthawks (1942), original painting has been 'homage'd' by many in different contexts and how appropriate or inappropriate is anybody's guess.

The lighting is one that has been discussed by Strobist, in a humorous way, not withstanding the parameters in which a 'retro' mood such as seen in this painting has now been enamoured and sought after in different ways to replicate. I am one for mood's in painting as some might know.

While I often referenced and read many abstract, conceptual and post modernist, this time a nice change is in order as I return to the slow, the planned and the organized way of practice, where there's simple clarity in what I want to achieve, sketch out a bunch of studies, and then hit the canvas running. It's not everyday I appreciate something as tangible and realistic as this, but here and now, today it is one of those rare moments.

Paper Crazy

2010-08-02T16:51:00.000+08:00

LA based artist and paper sculptor Jeff Nishinaka's works made of paper just landed on my lap, and take a look at the sculptural intricacy and detail of some of his installation works. This has about 5 Wow factor. Wonderful, Well Done, Witty, Wistful and Wholesome.

Truly awesome in the fine art sense and works in a commercial sense without the ick factor of commercial reproduction !

Enjoy!

Alpha Domination

2010-07-13T12:42:00.000+08:00

Not quite how it should look, but this is also just a close up of part of the second painting, currently untitled...

Here's the full painting of Unprovoked.

Not a bad start of starting the act of making the invisible appear!

Talking to the hand

2010-07-13T12:36:00.000+08:00

Opportunity for dirt

2010-07-12T21:56:00.000+08:00

Marbleing paint on paper-mache mask

So i am back to color, it seems like an outburst is in order. I've had many excuses not to make art, now I've decided to let it rip. It's not the kind of things I usually do. I say goodbye to black, just for now, I've turned you in for a mini-hiatus for a good rub of other colours, and a promise to pick you up later on my way back from technicolour mountain.

You know that feeling when something needs expressing? It sounds like green, magenta and payne's grey.The piece comes together unprovoked, the colour choices seems unconscious, the lines feels like fire, the strokes sounds like hissing in the distance, lots of nothingness. Brain firing up like mental patient in a straight jacket. Good thing exterior is calm.

(close up of ) Un-provoked

18 x 24"

Oil on Canvas

Status Pimple

2010-06-07T17:31:00.008+08:00

FACTS: What is valued when one lives in Singapore?

Obviously money buys all the above valued items amongst others luxury goods that reflects one's wealth and therefor must mean one is a dignified member of the modern society.

This is a fact as written by Alain De Botton in "Status Anxiety".

He continued 'when you are satisfied with how much you have, you consider yourself rich, therefor wealth is entirely relative'.

----------------------------------- where am I going with this? you ask-------------------

I ask myself today; 'Oh city of status, how do I respond to all that you are without rejecting, resenting, whinging and complaining about living in you, instead find a way to engage with all that makes you who you are without compromising my sense of creative expression? '

Presently, you are a shiny large pimple that i'd like to deal with without squishing the eye out, but just letting you be, admiring you from other 'angles'.

All things that bugs you are things that you somehow fail to accept anyways,...for the most parts.

Thinking about what's good is cliche, but thinking about what is bad is also cliche. Perhaps a good start is to think along other lines. What makes 'cliche' so 'comfortable'? The odds and ends that happened which amazes me because these things aren't cliche. Beautiful ridiculously expensive shiny things you can't imagine ever needing. Ridiculous long queues for donuts or rice cakes. Superstitious money plants and tamil men holding hands.

What is nice to think about is what kind of seeming ordinary but fantastic singapore would I see myself be engaging, responding, and stewing in?

I'll do my best to answer in the next post!

Audio Blog Series- Conceived

2010-06-01T01:59:00.006+08:00

What is an audio series, you ask?

I've been mulling on taking the work's trajectory back to sound again, after many months of contemplating what needed to come out that painting just fails to assist with, and what needed to be express that's just utterly insufficient on those ink and paper studies. After saigon, after meeting multi-media sound artist's Zeenath Hasan and experiencing her SMS Tour, and after Soul Mountain which since the MEME exhibition hasn't seen the light of day.....I feel a sound-based repertoire is on the short order.

Finally the first rough of audio series was made AND posted today. I write as if I didn't have anything to do with it, as if I am an observer of this 'work' being produced. In order to maintain an open-ended sense of moderation of my ever so clever left brain (ie: not wanting to toot my own horn so early in the conceiving period), perhaps that's how i'd like to keep it for now.

The audio series is one of hopefully many which I will be making, as a vehicle to share my monthly Olij Studio newsletters and art-tickles.

Wanna hear it? go here

It is a rough and tumble quality, it was recorded in one take, and dictions and pronunciations all deliberately stressed.

What it needs is careful writing and editing, background noise cleaning and about 57 underwear changes, 62 cups of coffee, 240 hours of sleep and 30,000 metre swim before it might become a decent piece of work.

"Now that it's conceived, let's just keep the incubation period on a sound plate and keep it going" says I to the artist. And just to give a little more context to audio works in my practice, here's a part of the Soul Mountain audio piece:

OLIJ STUDIO workshop's back!

2010-05-17T23:56:00.004+08:00

Check it out here

Hello Process

2010-05-07T08:49:00.002+08:00

Under the right conditions, an art practice flows and the energy moves into the spaces around the work, the brain and a physical expression can push forward a process-based artist like me forward. This studio has the right light, the right wall size, the right large window, and with a bit of music, the condition is almost perfect.

Staying put on a thought, like meditation creates balance.

Under the right condition and with less chattering of the Left Brain, the painting appears in the spaces through dimensions that is beyond the third. Process is time, time in space-time based theory cannot be explained, but perhaps it can be seen...

Saigon Studio Snapshots

2010-05-07T08:10:00.003+08:00

Wall of Drawings of the Right Brain.

Blind Drawing accesses your other senses, which then is used in combination with imagination and the mind's eye draws upon itself an impression, and the right brain connects it to your hands, while the left brain is busy chattering, possibly saying 'omg, omg, omg, this drawing is going to come out horrible'.

Ink is versatile, it may just look black, but it's so colorfully black.

'The Bamboo' painting appears

Explaining different types of charcoal, graphite and pencils. Material are essential in your drawing, if you don't like your materials, not only will your drawing not come out, but you're going to start hating your work.

Circles of emotions being explained in depth, sometimes sharing what you draw reveals insights into yourself you may not realize.

There is something incredible about painting one piece together, there is not only collaboration, but fears resurface in a group setting like this, we all talk about how dreadful this painting will come out and that we don't have a clue what we're doing. It is through this kinds of process can we really hear what our brain is telling us. The choice is then yours whether to listen to it, or to continue painting. Our left brain loves expectations, standards, comparisons, and it doesn't like the 'i am just painting' the right brain is doing.

Day 5 - Painting

2010-05-02T02:44:00.002+08:00

Collaboration happened today, this piece was made closer to the end of another wonderful day at the studio, Peter and Archie came back today and by natural progression, we all painted this work together, mostly after playing with soap bubbles and drinking straw, a "blow" master was of the making...

This works made using spray, ink and a lot of blowing on a drinking straw...

Such as this....! Peter has become the resident blow master, he's perfected the ink blowing technique, and short of hyperventilation, it made amazing evocative effects.

Peter and Archie discussing perhaps,...who knows what. The studio is focused on more painting today and as the size of paper is going bigger and bigger, a plan was sort of hatch to paint another big piece tomorrow to mark my last day, and perhaps it is also time to break out the vodka!

Here was I earlier in the day before the others arrived, I had a good few hours of pure bliss-full quiet painting quality time. I made records, and managed to meditate on the now-ness and the possibility of contentment without the promise of the future.

What I learned today; Without holding on to being precious, destroying a pretty painting becomes a cathartic experience that I NEED. I allowed things to happen naturally, there are no strict rules where there could have been. Acknowledging all this is a large part of being more me.

Day 4 RMIT & Randomness in Ink

2010-05-01T00:34:00.007+08:00

Happy 35th Year of Liberation Day, Ho Chi Mihn!

Students from the RMIT Vietnam came for a few hours, and did Drawing on The Right Side of the Brain exercises. They are really open, earnest, and enthusiastic bunch. It feels amazing to be amongst them

Today I had the pleasure of painting with Peter. A brit, science teacher and free spirited artist for lack of better word. Peter and I made this painting today, through out the day, a few other people contributed their marks to the work as well. We made a mess and had so much fun painting and playing with ink and water and spray.

I don't quite know if there's a connection between what the "being more them" to be come 'more ME' has with the intuitive sketches. It is disproportionate, it is not immediately obvious, it needed assertion.

Being here made me realize all the creativity classes are a direct reaction to my need for a creative bubble, a community that is naturally forming, without the holding back, the fear or being over taken and paranoia about not being on top, on the edge and not being the coolest!

An architect name Phi came in later in the evening and sat on the corner on the floor drawing his emotion. Later on I got a chance to ask him, who said he's more in construction then an architect, how come construction carried on through the wee mornings? The answer was undeniably a solid urban decision making. Because most streets in HCMC are narrow, the government placed a law against trucks in the city during the day time, as it will choke up the streets and causes nightmarish traffic.

Everything has a reason, and purpose.....esque.

Day 3 Fashion Designer & Writer

2010-04-30T23:56:00.009+08:00

His name is Hoang Le, an aspiring fashion designer who works downstairs at the high-end stationery shop. (My studio is upstairs.)

This proud boy speaks immaculate english and has a whole line of haute couture clothing, three of the designs here are his favorite, he said. Another example of the dreams and glamor of the fashion world, he talked about project runway, and the inspiration of his collection as a woman walking in a black forest.

A writer and journalist came in to work with Sue, then he came back the following day. His name is John Krich, he wrote 8 travel books and one of them is called "Music in Every Room"

Amongst other things, John is here to cover some stories as well as attend a reunion of Vietnam War Journalist at the Caravelle Hotel. How interesting? Well, i am more interested in how he draws, and here's what he drew today.

In the fashion of 4th dimension, my time here has flew by amongst very constant flow of visitors.

Ink flowing on paper today. I ran out of paper faster then I thought. People came and stayed much longer then I thought they would.

ALBB Saigon - Day 2

2010-04-29T03:30:00.006+08:00

In the morning, five french kids and their parents were in the studio, drawing emotions and blind drawing, in the mid afternoon, indian artist Abha wandered in and stayed for most of the afternoon, we shared the same birth date, how wonderfully random is that?

Here, Abha's reading David Lynch's How to Catch a Big Fish.

A random business man wandered in at mid afternoon, while killing time waiting for his work business permit from across the street in the governmental office, he sat down and drew HIS emotion. He was really friendly, really open, and wrote on the guest book ' I LIKE HERE, KNOW RICHARD CULTURE". It probably means he likes it here and likes the fact that he gets to enriched himself with a richer culture. If one overextend a little, perhaps the drawing exercise reminds him to some dude name Richard Culture... what a cool name!

In the early evening this guy walks in: DJ Kenzo has spiky hair, a big grin and yet he's quiet and has voyeuristic demeanor. He carried David Lynch's book around the studio for a while, then we sat outside watching people and the street go by, and then we drink some tea, listening to what he called 'easy listening' and talking about Van Gogh.

The lowlight of Day 2 happened at 2 am in the morning, when I stormed out of my hotel room after complaining many times about the noise the building site right next door was making, there's a revolution like sounds coming from there that is right next door to my room window, and at this rate, i don't see them stopping, and I don't see me sleeping....

After failing to get a taxi who won't rip me off to get me to another hotel that's situated right in front of the studio, i decided to walk the crankiness off (with the luggage) three blocks down to A&EM hotel. I am now significantly happier, the room is a bit more expensive, but much better, bigger and a stone throw away from the studio. Albeit tired, i think it's past my bedtime...hence the uber-late blog post, I thought the low-light was an event worth waxing on about.

Good Morning, Sài Gòn!

ALBB Saigon - Day 1

2010-04-27T16:41:00.003+08:00

The inks and spray's out, the paper's uprolled, the music's loudly blasting and the trajectory is about how to inspire people who come to the studio to become more themselves and in the process to make me become more ME.

Lunch of beautifully large salads and beet root juices in high ceiling post-war french architectured brasserie called Au Parc...

While the studio is cool and peaceful, outside under the bushy tree, ho chi minh is scorching, steamy and the air palpably stuffy, the street is bustling with people, motorbikes, uniformed men and ladies with pollution face protector.

Process and Good Bye

2010-04-20T16:37:00.004+08:00

In the praise for normalcy and shirking the anomalies of my art trajectories, I have not made much new art lately besides the dabbling of new paper and ink and going back to doing multiple weeks of life drawings.

Besides the lack of space and noise pollution, my being is reasonably occupied, in fact royally occupied by self reflections born out of a 'new' - for lack of better word; 'fantastic' and 'scary' relationship. The kind of relationship that shifts a person into a higher plane of consciousness by process. There's only two choices a happy artist in love can do in this rather unfortunate situation, one of them is appointing a locus of focus, the other is blowing a fuse. I will never be able to admit that I am too practical or too energetically evolved for the latter.

In the past few months I have realized that the work I do, never has a finish goal in mind. It is always open ended, and starts on impulse of something hands-on and something my brain received and do not reject.

The proposed research that I left off from from "the Missing list's", the invisible ink work shown in Paris; is that of the expression of the ineffable. This is now progressing into looking at physics, morphing from the usual remnants of conversations, the improbability of visualizing the fourth dimension fell on my lap.

As I prepare movement for the open studio in Ho Chi Minh next week, plans to abandon any expectation that any 'good' works will appear is sounding more and more like a great plan. I have long broken into being benevolent with local materials and local social construct to push me into new dimensions.

Bye Bye Good Works, bye bye!

My Next Art Project in Vietnam

2010-02-20T12:15:00.003+08:00

albb major project 2010
A WINDOW UNTIL THE RAINS COME:
albb Open Studio Program

Interested in contemporary art, design and creativity?

Curious about visiting an artist’s studio to see first-hand how an artist works?

Keen to take a workshop or to be part of a creative project?

For 10 weeks starting February 24th 2010, right in the heart of District 1, you can visit an artist’s studio to see how the creative process works or to roll up your shirtsleeves and get involved!

In Le Thanh Ton Street, on the floor above PI-CHANNEL stationery shop, seventeen different Vietnamese and overseas-based artists, designers and architects are busily involved in creative projects. Their studio is open for you to visit; it’s a relaxed environment that you can drop in to at any time to watch projects or artworks developing, sit and chat to the artists or even take part in the project in some way. Every 7 to 12 days, a new artist or team will take over the space, and with eleven independent projects happening you can always meet someone of a different age or background or who is working on a fresh project — from sewing superhero costumes or sock toys, from portrait photography or symbolic drawings to Nordic lacquer painting or object collecting! All artists speak English and are able to speak Vietnamese or have assistants to help them with Vietnamese-speakers.

albb Open Studio is open daily from 9am until 9pm. At 31B Le Thanh Ton, just around the corner from Thi Sach, we are easy to find. Drop by during the week or on the weekend and wander upstairs to see what’s happening in creative life in Ho Chi Minh City!

24 Feb 2010—02 May 2010
PI-CHANNEL shop, upstairs
31B Le Thanh Ton, District 1, HCM City, 9AM—9PM daily

++++++++++++++++++++

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

24/02—01/03:
Trần Minh Đức /// Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City

03/03—08/03:
Philip Faulks /// Melbourne – Australia

09/03—14/03:
8Geese /// Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City

16/03—24/03:
Freek Drent, in collaboration with Vincent Westgeest///
Netherlands – Ho Chi Minh City

27/03—01/04:
Bill Nguyen /// Vietnam - Hanoi

03/04—12/04:
Michael Bullock /// Australia - Melbourne
&
Radoslaw Stypczynski /// Sweden - Stockholm

14/04—18/04:
Archie Pizzini /// USA - Ho Chi MInh City

20/04—25/04:
Simone Boon /// Netherlands - Hong Kong
&
Marsha Roddy /// UK - Hong Kong

27/04—02/05:
Susan Olij /// Indonesia – Singapore

http://albbsaigon-2010.blogspot.com/
http://www.pi-channel.com/
http://www.facebook.com/3.14channel

24 Feb 2010 - 02 May 2010
9AM - 9PM daily

@ PI-CHANNEL shop, upstairs
31B Le Thanh Ton, District 1, HCM City

Appreciating February, Fridays and Faff

2010-02-20T01:51:00.003+08:00

The Missing List, 2009- Installation of Invisible Ink & Rice Paper
Beaux Art, Paris, France
Exhibition 'Seven Day Weekend' 12-21 February 2010

The weekend is where one wakes up to a bright green bushy trees waving outside the window, the window air-conditioning chugging along like a locomotive. And the body drained from the week slowly waking up, the brain wheeling ideas, thoughts, things; cheese, lipstick, tan lines, trying to remember dreams, task to do, people to call, text messages lost.

February is an exquisite month, there's moments of sensitivity, intimacy, antsy, frustration, suffering, laughter, romance, intoxication, hope, fears, granules of paranoia, spring cleaning, printers, imacs, technology and a pet nerd.

I wrote somewhere that there's nothing 'typical' about my fridays, and that is holding up itself as a record to date. In fact there's nothing typical about any day of the week these days. I am loving, I feel loved, I am creating, and feel creative, I am becoming, and being, and running, and napping.

I am thankful for the morning coffee, croissants, grumpy taxi drivers, high heels and fishnet stockings, ten-course meals, long walks, list-less week, peking duck, dogs, monster cat, creativity in people, faith in growth with patience. I appreciate nudity, errors, confusion, charities, exclamation points, eccentricity, coincidences, strangers, wait lists, tall ice tea drinks, cigarettes, ink stains, laughter, distance...

I am still a big fan of learning, and I learned a lot of new things these days, daily, hourly, and I love the smell, the realism, the machine, the unexplainable wondrousness of my life.

Random Awesome Coolness

2009-11-30T20:54:00.004+08:00

Artwork by Tomas Saraceno

Have you ever noticed life is full of random awesome coolness. Why not just flow along, naturally and let the point be everywhere and everything to be what already is.
What am I saying? These days I am making lists, there's to do lists, there's done lists, there's happy lists, gratefulness lists, so why not have a random awesome list? That is not saying that there's none and I have to always look for it. For some subconscious trained reason, now things that are random and cool keeps falling on my lap, either I do something or something is happening while I was present.

Some examples of random cool things are free shuttle bus from home to studio. Flame fire scorching my last piece of invisible painting ( I didn't say random awesome-ness are always non-dangerous), the back of my head's hair much much shorter then the front of my hair, aura photos, brain color reading. If i don't make a list of awesome random stuff, it doesn't get recorded, and what a pity it would be?

End of the year is coming. Workshops are being planned in a big way to go from Schools, Hospitals, Banks, and even hotels. What makes me feel really good is when artworks gets made because of something I taught, and learned while I was talking to someone, when random cool connections just' meet' and make sense of things. Where no one really knows and wander around aimlessly in this super connected coolness. When someone wears a brand and imagine themselves in a life they didn't have. Oh and what else is cooler then form meets function of learning, creating and people and objects.

A yoga pose is a form that functions.
A pencil meeting paper is a function that is form.
A metaphor is nothing but a function to allow form to take shape.

So if you're reading this, feel the juicy flip flopping of form and function happening around you, and then notice how random, awesome and cool they are.....

Installation in JIA Exhibition at Post-Museum

2009-10-23T13:54:00.002+08:00

Family " JIA " Exhibition. Opening 22nd October 2009

2009-10-03T02:17:00.000+08:00

Masters of Art Fine Art Exhibition 2009

2009-06-19T16:18:00.001+08:00

24 June - 19 July 2009

An Abstract Drawing - Where I stop and You start

2009-06-19T16:14:00.003+08:00

Paper and Thread Installation

MEME

Masters of Art Fine Art Exhibition 2009

ICA Galleries, LaSalle

LaSalle Show 2009

2009-05-24T01:01:00.000+08:00

Opening Night

2009-05-24T00:56:00.001+08:00

Audio Installation - LaSalle Show 2009

2009-05-24T00:53:00.000+08:00

Soul Mountain

2009-04-30T01:18:00.000+08:00

Chinese Ink on Rice Paper. 2009
Variable

Where I stop You Start- Perspectives

2009-04-30T01:13:00.000+08:00

Where I stop You start- studies

2009-04-30T01:09:00.000+08:00

Assessment Review- Photography Layout

2009-04-30T01:00:00.002+08:00

more Dumplings?

2009-04-02T00:40:00.001+08:00

Dumplings installation studies, perhaps these will go to Paris in December...

Ink and paper
Variable sizes
2009

Lifting an event into space

2009-04-02T00:36:00.002+08:00

Paper, cotton thread
A sketch of an Installation for Degree Show 2009
Variable Sizes

Drawing Painting- a study

2009-04-02T00:32:00.000+08:00

Paper, Ink, Cotton Thread
A Study- A sketch
2009

Drawing painting

2009-04-02T00:24:00.001+08:00

Rice paper, ink, cotton thread
Variable Sizes
2009

From one to two

2009-04-02T00:19:00.000+08:00

Rice paper, Ink, cotton thread
Variable size
2009

Line Mines

2009-04-02T00:13:00.003+08:00

Cotton Thread on Paper - Photograph
Variable Size
2009

Next Exhibition...in Jakarta

2009-02-27T01:14:00.001+08:00

Opening Monday 23 February 2009

2009-02-21T01:57:00.000+08:00

Sitting with Rice, 2009

2009-02-17T23:11:00.001+08:00

Installation project for Group show opening 23 February 2009

Beneath the Surface, 2009

2009-02-17T23:07:00.004+08:00

An installation
Paper, Human Hair, Magnifying glass.
Variable Sizes

Ink Studies

2008-11-15T01:23:00.002+08:00

Pinkness (Study)
Ink on Paper
2008

Greyness (Study)
Ink on Paper
2008

Blueness (study)
Ink on Paper
2008

Ink on Paper

2008-11-15T01:16:00.002+08:00

Detailed Close up A

Detailed Close up B

Untitled
Ink on Paper
2009

Terrain and Plane

2008-09-19T17:39:00.007+08:00

Photomontage and newspaper
2008

Terrain and Jet

2008-09-19T17:39:00.006+08:00

Photomontage and newspaper
2008

Terrain

2008-09-19T17:39:00.004+08:00

Photo montage and newspaper
2008

Taipei Drift

2008-09-06T22:51:00.005+08:00

As part of my LaSalle MA Fine Art Degree. I am off to Taipei from 8-18 September 2008 to attend International Art Workshop for Art Academia called Taipei Drift

Here are the
Taipei Drift Participant list

Beauty in Utility

2008-08-02T01:48:00.003+08:00

Fire Starter
Photography, 2008

Goop Lifter
Photography,2008

Disposable Helper
Photography 2008

A cause to contemplate is the idea of utilitarian beauty. I become interested in the utilitarian quality of abundant small things, of useful small invention, these are simple and sensual. Does utilitarian things have emotive quality in such close proximity?

Energetic Triptych

2008-07-10T20:57:00.001+08:00

Trans Map Graph 1,2,3

2008-07-10T20:51:00.000+08:00

Trans Map Graph 4

2008-07-10T19:22:00.002+08:00

Planes

2008-07-10T18:21:00.000+08:00

Consciousness

2008-07-10T18:11:00.002+08:00

Chinese Ink on paper

Gevulde Papier; Rellenado Papel

2008-07-10T18:05:00.000+08:00

Gevulde Papier; Rellenado Papel

2008-07-06T02:08:00.002+08:00

In my continued search for consistencies between thought and action. I began these paper dumplings series during my residency in Spain.

The work comes in two parts. Part one the ‘thought’ and part two the transference of the thought into ‘action’, using ink as the fillings.
As two parts meets in points filled with ink. They are part of one thing, which upon transference become two separated parts.

Residency: Can Serrat, El Bruc, Spain

Pointing 7- 9, Installation 2.3

2008-07-06T01:57:00.001+08:00

Pointing Series No 2 - 6

2008-07-06T01:53:00.000+08:00

Pointing Series No. 1

2008-04-16T22:32:00.000+08:00

Matter Installations

2008-04-02T02:03:00.003+08:00

Matter Installation, 2008
variable in size and perpetually changing in composition
twine, ceramics, concrete on canvas & nails.

Charity Auction for Village Bank Program

2008-02-18T12:02:00.002+08:00

This painting was donated to raise money for TIAW (The International Alliance for Women) Village Bank Program. Through Primetime Business and Professional Women's Association charity night on 16 February 2007

The painting raised $585 which is more then 3 microcredit and can fund 3 loans to women in poor countries to start their own small businesses.

Microcredit has the ability to exponentially impact the lives of individuals, families and communities. It is a proven method to move people out of poverty- with dignity.

Identity: Photograph (Opening Night)

2007-11-28T00:30:00.000+08:00

Perpetual Itch Series

2007-11-26T22:42:00.000+08:00

Identity: Photograph, An exhibition

2007-11-24T12:47:00.002+08:00

Exhibition opening Tuesday 27th November at 5.30pm
Exhibition Duration: 27 November - 14 December 2007
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday 10 am - 5 pm

"Folding Families circa 1948 - 2007" Series, 2007

Folding Families (circa 1948-2007)

2007-11-24T12:43:00.001+08:00

Praxis Space. November 27- December 13 2007

3in1: Making Life Instant

2007-11-21T22:16:00.000+08:00

Statement

“3 in 1” making life instant is a multi-media installation consisting of video and still images projection, exploring the idea of instant gratification and the monotony of daily life. At this present time, contemporary society is living in a high-tech globalize age, an era of instant gratification. It feels that things are never enough. It’s as if the body is trapped in time. Giving birth, go to school, walking, eating, sitting, working, and sleeping. What do we really want in life? Our mind yearns for something more, something deeper than the daily repetitive patterns of ‘this life’. There is a need to expect, experience, and have something more in life. The question is what is that ‘something more’? Does that something more really exist? Can we play an active role in creating this cycle? Do we accept or question this status quo?

Upcoming Exhibition

2007-06-14T20:35:00.000+08:00

Pri-ma don-na, Semi-sculptural paintings by Susan Olij

2007-04-22T19:18:00.000+08:00

The Vanity Standing Series

2007-04-22T19:11:00.000+08:00

Regina, 2007
32 (h) x 7(l) x 7(w) cm
Mix Media Treated Recycled Bottle

Superficiale, 2007
31(h) x 8(l) x 8(w) cm
Mix Media Treated Recycled Bottle

Principessa, 2007
27 (h) x 7(l) x 7(w) cm
Mix Media Treated Recycled Bottle

Blank Slate, 2007

27 (h) x 10 (l) x 10 (w) cm
Mix Media Treated Recycled Bottle

The Provocateur, 50 x 50 cm, Mix media and objects on wood

2007-04-22T19:10:00.000+08:00

Armoured Mediocre, 50 x 50 cm, Mix media and Objects on wood

2007-04-22T19:08:00.000+08:00

The Beautiful Delusion, 50 x 50 cm, Mix media and objects on wood

2007-04-22T19:07:00.000+08:00

Attention Deficit Disorder, 50 x 50 cm, Mix media and plaster cast on wood.

2007-04-22T19:06:00.000+08:00

Gossip Monger, 50 x 50 cm. Mix media and Objects on Wood

2007-04-22T19:05:00.000+08:00

The Cute Socialite, 50 x 50 cm. Mix Media and Object on Wood

2007-04-22T19:02:00.000+08:00