Since the dawn of l’automatisme, the floating shapes of Miro and Klee were praised as musical suggestions. Unlike the Masters, my groundwork of flowing lines speaks melody and rhythm from a musical score perspective. The flow of lines ties the art elements into a composition. It also reflects a concept from Chinese paintings, which says, ` as a line moves into the invisible, the idea continues.’
Whether the script in the background is an actual sutra is not the concern, even if it is, would it be readable to most? I question the use of lines in Calligraphy. Without the recognition of the exact words or meaning, can we still appreciate the quality and skills involved? Armed with a Chinese writing foundation, I adapted the use of the eight strokes (the basis of construction to Chinese character). The `writings’ resembles Chinese/Japanese writings but in fact, they are not. I needed a texture. With language as a symbol of culture, by visually adapting these kind of lines endears us to the image.
The form of Martial Arts introduced by Bruce Lee embraces `being formless’ as a central idea. Sharing this belief, my works do not start with an intention of what to make, but rather the process is to follow-through to what the works wish to become. In Jeet Kun To, the practice is to `be water’, to react and to blend. Instead of following the artist’s desire to direct the brush, I enhance, without an intention to change or render. The composition dropped from elsewhere as a message and is polished to shine.
This is NOT my artwork, this was given to me as a graduation gift from my brother. This was during the drought so not a lot of us could get a bouquet of flowers, my brother asked our art teacher to do an extra print for me. When I found this in my gift bag I was already emotional and almost cried. This was better than a bouquet of flowers, one of my favourite birds in my favourite medium.
