–to be further updated–

[WEEK 2]

At this stage, I was still generally feeling like a lost sheep with regards to the direction I want to partake for the assignment, whether I want to just go with different attributes or to have a theme/concept to tie everything together. So I started off with the most basic and direct approach of listing attributes about myself, too many than needed surfaced to my head, and some attributes I don’t quite know how to put a succinct term to. Here are some attributes I came up and shortlisted:

1. Rational
2. Perfectionist
3. Introspective
4. Melancholic
5. Low-key
6. Sentimental

…and the list goes on actually. So that was my main struggle at that point of time.

Subsequently, to aid with materialising the image, I continued with research. This time, I have also extended my research beyond typographic words, to explore into possible medium and approaches I can draw inspiration on.

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Hillary Fayle – leaf embroidery

There is a deliberate attempt to install order/pattern or trying to patch pieces of nature together in this work. The resulting contrast between manmade and organic elements become compelling.

Evelin Kasikov – embroidered CMYK typography

Meg Hitchcock – text drawings

Another way typography could be approached is using smaller elements of them to create a larger image. It enables more than one dimension of interpretation.

Ariana Boussard-Reifel’s Between the Lines (2007)

This work itself is particularly meaning in its concept, as it was a response to white supremacist. The black text were cut out word by word from the white pages of a white supremacist book, literally but delivered the intended message with great sophistication.

However, putting aside its message, its methodology proposes an alternative portrayal of meaning through the absence of the words itself. This idea could be extended to consider that the negative spaces could be used to form images, likewise for the positive text, when we incorporate the idea of text drawings from Meg Hitchcock’s work I’ve mentioned above.

 

I’ve also encountered some works at Art Stage that weekend, inclusive of:

Ohmori Akio

Inaba Tomohiro

Qiu Zhi Jie – The Map of the Near and the Far (2014)

Zheng Lu – calligraphic sculptures

Takamatsu Kazuki – depth-mapping paintings

Nakamura Kengo – ‘Emoticon – Ourselves in Today’s World’ series

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SKETCHES

Sentimental

Introspective (Reference: Ohmori Akio)

Social ghost

Melancholic (Reference: Hillary Fayle)

When there is a mention of melancholy, an instinctive visualisation of such a mood would be brown fall autumn leaves, kinda. Haha. In this sense, I wanted to convey a large part of my personality being a melancholic temperament, from the Four Temperaments personalities theory. It encompasses the traits of perfectionism, emotional sensitivity and delicacy.

Inspired by Hillary Fayle’s embroidered leaves, I want to sew the leaves together in a particular pattern to form my own name. The leaves would be meticulously arranged and trimmed to fill the A5 canvas, displaying the sense of perfectionist quality. At the same time, due to the brittle nature of the leaves, and being sewn together, there’s a sense of delicacy, that there’s a perpetual effort to keep the emotions held together.

Spectator/Escapist

some experimentation using paper strips

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[WEEK 3]

After the consultation with Joy in the second week, I’ve decidedly picked up the direction of having a theme to go about. We both shared the sentiments on further developing on my “ghost” concept from the previous Hello exercise. To take the idea further, rather than restricting to how I relate to a ghostly presence or how I see myself as a “ghost”, I could branch out from the idea into different aspects of life, for example the ghost of a strict family traditions, etc.

As followed, I started drawing a mind map related to “ghost” which I could relate to:

• social ghost; fleeting existence, hidden in the crowd: collage of cut outs of people interacting with each other to form negative space of my name (Reference: Hannah Höch, Hilka Riba’s Desiderata)
• the ghost of someone who I think I should be/better off being (alter ego) which keeps haunting my real self; glamorous, sociable, flashy: I intended to use various objects like shiny sequins and colourful holographic sheets/streamers to form my name and the image, taking photographs of it, and probably photoshopping it to render a sort of an hazy blinding and gaudy mood to it (Reference: Dustin Tong’s Visibility)
• the ghost of me who lives in the cyberspace, the alternative identity on the internet: forming name out of emojis (Reference: Nakamura Kengo’s Emoticon series)
• the ghost of the past which lingers and you can’t let go; sentimental, hoarder
• fear of ghosts/supernatural; the fear of uncertainties: transparent words written in clear fluid or cut out in transparency which shimmers in light or scratched/embossed text
• the ghosts of what kind of people my grandparents and parents are which lingers in me

Indeed, it’s easier to relate back to the closest subjects around you. My family doesn’t seem to have some sort of peculiar tradition enforced on me. Yet, I have always noticed and observed the similarities and little quirks or traits I share with my grandparents and parents, regardless of whether they are good or bad. At the same time, I found it quite hard to convey some of my ideas above into typography, and the scope is still quite broad despite the single theme. Thus, I have chosen the last idea of my family to concentrate development on, because I also found out I could expand on focusing on each of my family member.

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More reference artist research:

SAWDUST

Gulyas Benedek – Flexibility

I inferred that this was achieved through capturing motion footage of distorting typography using glass bottles. It is interesting to see how it gives rise to a sense of movement and a distinct style.

Nicole Licht – 3D/mixed media typography

Joseph Navarro – Symmetry

Danil Krivoruchko

Hilka Riba – Desiderata

Peter Kortleve – Always Create a Piece of HeART

Ting-An Ho – Name the Tree

Chinese typography

Wilson Tan – The Struggle

Tien-Min Liao – Noodle & Rice Lettering

Bc Huang

hailong xiang

Cheng Jie Sung and Chih-ting Lai

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THE FAMILY GHOST: There are traits of my grandparents and parents which I reflect; bits and pieces of their identity lingers in me. Exploring the indirect, unconscious, and inevitable influences of our family members which trickles down to ourselves, contributing to shaping who we are.

Overarching creative decisions and motif:

• Using my Chinese name because my family is Chinese-speaking
• Incorporating old-fashioned but useful household items or features which are familiar to Singapore and could be found in my own household (since our flat is relatively old, it possesses a lot of old Singaporean HDB flat features), reflecting the general sense of what kind of household we are
• And also possibly aiming to strike a contrast/paralleling

1 | Grandmother

Trait: Deep sense of attachment with the place we live in; go after stability than anything else, can be stubborn with the things we feel entitled to or are used to.

Both of us share an affinity and deep sense of belonging to our current house where our family have moved in over two decades ago. It’s also the place I’ve lived in ever since I was born.

Object: Traditional Chinese calendar, a familiar Singaporean household object. Using it, I want to relate it to the sense of a typical Chinese Singaporean household, and the particular idea of time we spent in this house.

Approach:

Even before I decided on incorporating the different objects, I thought of employing Chinese paper cut into this piece. My first and foremost intention behind it was that Chinese paper cut is a traditional craft which we could relate to the older generation, and I choose to draw on the circular/monocentric types. There is the intention for it to be circular as it supposedly plays on the metaphorical sense of a circle being a small enclosed/drawn space or spot, where we tend to stay within. It is also undoubtedly aesthetically-pleasing.

Symmetrical – either folded into halves or quarters then cut, producing symmetry and/or repeated patterns around a single centre – the concept of reflection

Asymmetrical

I intend to design the paper cut to resemble a map but tweaked to spell my name, so the lines would tend to be geometric rather than organic.

(Reference: Taras Sgibnev’s The Way Home)

• Eventually, I’ve thought of incorporating the calendar. So instead of doing the paper cut on a regular red paper (I also had difficulties locating a shop which sells it??), I will cut on the calendar page.
• Use of traditional and simplified Chinese in this to give rise to a contrast between old and new
• Use of different shapes or patterns used other than a circle and map, like triangle (the golden triangle composition renders a stable composition) or tree roots (roots carries the meaning of belonging and origins in Chinese)
• Instead of simply pasting a circular paper cut on an A5 background, I thought maybe cutting the shapes out of a single piece of A5 canvas may better convey the idea of being fixed in a particular spot.
• Could perhaps play with the “advice” feature of the calendar page at the bottom of the date

A concern of mine is that the way of representation may not strike as clearly to viewers the relation to the intended message.

After the consultation, I started to toy with the idea of emulating the cut to look like a view through the metal gate of the flat, overlooking the corridor or lift lobby. Thus, the image would be the circular paper cut design overlaying a scenic photograph of the HDB environment.

2 | Mother

Trait: My tongue for Indonesian cuisine.

My mother is an Indonesian-born Chinese, but I have never shared any special attachment to the place or the people there even though I had travelled there almost yearly, nor am I able to understand Bahasa Indonesian. I undoubtedly identify myself a 100% true blue Singaporean. Strangely, she had never actively promote me into liking them and she doesn’t know how to cook any authentic Indonesian dishes, but her cooking sometimes incorporates a tinge of Indonesian flavour like her homemade chilli paste and sambal petai. I believe it is attributed to my mother’s identity and my meagre experience in her birth country, that I happen to possess an affinity with Indonesian food, even over our own local Singaporean delicacies.

I think it is interesting to note that this unconsciously reflects on my mother’s identity, and this awkward relationship I have with my mother’s heritage. Also that most of our preferences could be unconsciously influenced. On a broader sense, it reflects on a core element behind a Singaporean identity – multiculturalism. Rather than undermining my Singaporean identity, it strengthens and enhances it.

Object: Stone mortar since we actually still have one which have been used to pound chilli and garlic etc. / The tile motif on our kitchen wall.

Approach:

Picture collage

Food typography

(Reference: Thomas Cheng)

3 | Grandfather

Trait: Sentimentality, hoarding tendencies

Just some time ago, the few old rattan chairs in our house had given way. My grandfather had gone to the extent of acquiring the rattan from Malaysia to fix the chairs. I’ve always thought that it’s pretty cool that he knew how to weave rattan chairs, and that we had them at home. That was a good example of how sentimental and persistent my grandfather are with his possessions. He tends to hoard things, even the damaged items, out of his frugal habits and also possibly the sentimental value attached to them. To some degree, I had also inherited his strong sentimental character. I collected stickers and namecards, I keep ticket stubs, and I can’t bear to throw out the old writing exchanges I had between my primary school teachers and friends.

Object: Rattan chairs

4 | Father

Trait: Inclination to the Chinese language, art, humanities

What is noteworthy is that my father had never quite actively influenced me into any of those subjects, yet I found myself sharing his inclinations towards Chinese, art, and humanities. It was also much later when I was doing O-level art that I learnt that he had done O-level art during his school days as well, also all his better subjects being humanities. One of the reasons I’ve been very much inclined to Chinese since a young age was my old hobby of reading the Chinese newspapers my father buys. (This was in primary school days, yes.) (We don’t have English papers at home so it kinda explains why English had been my weaker language).

Object: Chinese newspapers

(Reference: Meg Hitchcock’s text drawings and Ariana Boussard-Reifel’s Between the Lines)

Approach:

Cutting out text from the newspaper in the pattern of the first character of my name (洁) and using the cut outs to form the second character (琳), which holds the idea of “transference” (of preference/knowledge).

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A tidbit: I recalled a song by one of my favourite singers, Marina and the Diamonds, which I have found relatable. Its lyrics spoke to me in some ways (of course not in its exact sense) back when I first listened to it, since not many songs address the issue of family ties (and burdens). So I’m actually glad I stumbled upon this idea again to develop and portray in my work.

FAMILY JEWELS – Marina and the Diamonds

Pass it down from kid to kid
The chain will never end
Unless I decide to go to it
Will I see the end?