Warriors (wood carving symposium in Holland)

Title of work : Spear-shield in the ancient paradox.

Synopsis of work :
This work is created in response to the theme of warriors from ancient China. It is an allegorical interpretation of a Chinese story in 3rd century BC philosophical book by Han Fei Zi. In the story, a man was trying to sell a spear and a shield. When asked how good his spear was, he said that his spear could pierce any shield. Then, when asked how good his shield was, he said that it could defend from all spear attacks. Then one person asked him what would happen if he were to take his spear to strike his shield; the seller could not answer. This led to the idiom of "zìxīang máodùn" (自相矛盾), or "self-contradictory."

The sculpture took the idiom to a twist of having both the spear and shield on a balance. In such situation, the paradox lies in the shield act as a stoppable force from the shear.

http://www.warriors-assen.nl/

Wood Carving Symposium 2007

Wax and Metal V

For a human consequence, 2006

Wax, Metal and Light Bulbs,
80cm x 25cm x 400 cm

“Blank” SVA Degree Show 2006, Galleries 3, NAFA 1

The works by craft suggest the formation while the functions of technology hasten the deformation. An electrical bulb hence embodies to re-carve the hand-sculpted human body. It underlines the limitation in humanistic control of materials and contests it own by its ability to control electricity. It is a fusion of human and machines that is never quite met, ends up doubling the consequences of the destructions and disruptions by the electrical.

Wax and Metal IV

Installation

Sketch of design

Flesh and skeleton

clay model of the sculpture

Wax and Metal III

The conceptual drawing is the proposal of a sculptural installation that consists of a series of figurative wax figures connected by a network of electrical light appliance to activate a chain reaction of light energy.

The idea is coined from the recent incident of SIA’s intention to change the Singapore Girl’s image by giving up the iconic Kebaya uniform. The clay model shown is the nude figure in which the SIA’s kebaya uniform will be worn upon. The figure will be mold in white and red waxes in which the figures are melted and mixed into a new colour. This is will the help of electricity, primarily the electrical light bulb.

Clay model of figurine

Wax and Metal II

Peranakan is hybridization through the fusion of Malay and Chinese culture in the English socio political influence. They have the love of displaying their wealth in object d’art of ornaments, decorations crafts and fashion.

The sculpture is a figurine statute of a young nonya in the Kebaya fashion, feminine, modern and sensual. It is made of wax cast from a mold. The sculpture is built from a metal wire framework which is a figure form inspired from the great Victorian period artist craftsman Edward Burne Jones. The figure is appropriated from a watercolor painting, Cinderella in 1863.

A Heating element is embedded into the wire framework in which heat is conducted trough a electronic timer. The wax melts away by the controller and drips and collects in a silicon rubber mold directly below. After melting away, the wire frame is revealed and the appropriated wire sculpture of Burne Jones emerges. In the process, another new wax figure is casted out.

The controlled melting symbolizes the historical degradation of cultural values. In disappearing from the old, the new emerges appearance does relate to the old but with a separated semblance.

Wax and Metal I

The sculpture is kinetic due to its time-based movement which is controlled electrically. The work attempts to illustrate a performing psychic of a decaying sick body through symbolically representing flesh with wax and electrically heated metal with a neurosis of body purging out poison fluids (the wax that flows out is not pure white but oxidized green.)

The process flows is two-folded, the conceptual and the making. The work encounters many technical problems. The erratic nature of wax melting over the temperature control leads to many uncertainties like intoxicating fuming and oxidation of metals. The work did not ideally melt away the “flesh” and reveal the “bones”. It takes place in a transformation of dissolving, collapsing, and moldering etc as the wax is formed and deformed)

The work may to lead the viewer a sensational episode of horrific destruction of the human form. It may also be an amusement of techno-gadgetry like a kill-them-all electronic game console (the control will be designed to have a console so that the viewer can control this in flux of heat).
The making of the sculpture is challenged by the uncertainties beneath the reliance with technology. The statuette waits in the moment of unease, between the viewer’s tempting to hasten the electrical control and the repenting empathy of cruel destruction. Its monumental presence of an artwork and the artist’s craft expertise is therefore temporal.

Sculpting Heads in Clay

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