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HOW ARE YOU? I AM WELL   2017-2018

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ARTIST STATEMENT

 

This series is my way to work through the many questions I have accumulated through the years about art and about my place in it. I did not grow up in an environment where art was encouraged yet I have sought for it. Why do I need it and where does it come from?

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I began this series with an image of something that gave me a great sense of wonder, akin to the sense of wonder I found much later in great paintings: My childhood memory of looking into a well.

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When I was small, my family would make annual trips to Penang during the year-end school break to visit my grandparents. The North-South Highway had not yet come into existence. The drive from KL to Penang and vice versa would last from dawn till dusk, as we traversed through the meandering old roads, visiting other relatives’ homes along the way. One such pit stop was my uncle’s home in Tanjung Tualang, Perak. The front of the house functioned as a grocery shop catering for local tin mine workers, while the back was the residential area, with a small, enclosed courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard, there was a well. This well is where I first experienced something akin to looking at a painting.

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I come from a background of minimal exposure to art, yet I always wanted to be an artist and I have been one for some time now. But I have reached a point where I feel the ideas and beliefs I have held about art are unraveling. The world is no longer a recognizable place. Therefore, I am returning back to basics — to the well I saw so much wonder in, a reflection of the world, looking for groundwater to refresh a tired traveller.

2018 Panthera Tigris, oil on canvas, 153

Panthera Tigris

2018

Oil on canvas

153 x 153cm

2017 Mirage, oil on canvas, 100cm x 100c

Mirage

2017

Oil on canvas

100cm x 100cm

2018 Cat In The Sky, oil on canvas, 100

Cat In The Sky

2018

Oil on canvas

100 x 100cm

medusa.jpg

Cuticle

2017

Oil on canvas 175cm x 150cm

2017 Surface of the Moon, Bottom of the

Surface of the Moon, Bottom of the Well

2017

Oil on canvas

175cm x 150cm

2017 Dry Spell, Oil on canvas, 175cm x 1

Dry Spell

2017

Oil on canvas

175cm x 150cm

2017 The Drinking Giraffe, oil on canvas

The Drinking Giraffe

2017

oil on canvas

209cm x 137cm

2017 beacon, oil on canvas, 150cm x 150c

Beacon

2017

Oil on canvas

150cm x 150cm

2018 The Crab's Claw (For Capturing Arti
The Crab's Claw (For Capturing Artists)
2018
Oil on canvas
153cm x 214cm
2017 Candy Candy's Right Eye, oil on can

Candy Candy's Left Eye, 2017, oil on canvas, 150cm x 150cm

2017 Candy Candy's Left Eye, oil on canv

Candy Candy's Right Eye, 2017, oil on canvas, 150cm x 150cm

2017 Candy Candy, oil on canvas, 85cm x

Candy Candy

2017

Oil on canvas

85cm x 66cm

Candice (Candy) White Audrey – 
your saucer-like eyes shine brightly,
through them I could ride a flying teacup into the celestial sea,
like my uncle did and see what it got him.

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Candance (Candy) White Aubrey –
the stars and moon are mere specks in the sky,
and you are not real but that means you cannot die,
though my uncle had left, you were never his to begin with.

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Candy Candy White Ausrey –
your blonde hair fluffy and curly,
your jeans, your sneakers and your underwear underneath,
from which my uncle made a fortune, a bungalow by the sea.

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I peer into you –
Candy Candy’s left eye,
like peering into a well and I shout “How Are You?”
that question traveling light years in the speckled universe,
disappearing into a black hole,
then miraculously escaping to the Crab Nebula,
blazing back to the Milky Way,
clutching the tail of Halley’s comet,
coming into orbit every 74 to 79 years,
through all these the question hardened into an answer,
so it’s up the well to deliver to the inquisitor,
only to find a corpse at the top,
who waited in vain.

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However –

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In Candy Candy’s right eye,
the question is sucked into the black hole,
as Einstein and the quadriplegic man on the electric wheelchair have said,
space and time are like an elastic rubber,
so the question finds a way back to be an answer,
to me waiting, desperate and eager,
for the distracted, the unobservant, 
let me remind you again of the question –
“How Are You?”

From the well below echoes the answer –


“I am Well”.

​

-written by Chang Yoong Chia, edited by Bernice Chauly

2017 Candy Candy's Left and Right Eyes -

Candy Candy's Left and Right Eyes -Study

2017

Graphite on paper

29.7cm x 42cm

2018 Vortex, Charcoal and Chalk on Paper

Vortex

208

Charcoal and Chalk on Paper

97 x 63cm

2018 The Apple Well, Charcoal on paper,

The Apple Well

2018

Charcoal on paper

151x 140cm

2017 The Well is the Nipple is the Eye,

The Well is the Nipple is the Eye

2017

Charcoal on paper

41cm x 32cm

2017 Ripple in the Well, When No One is

Ripple in the Well, When No One is Around I

2017

Charcoal on paper

41 x 32cm

2017 Cat in the Well, Charcoal on paper,

Cat in the Well

2017

Charcoal on paper

41cm x 32cm

2017 Ripples in the Well, When No One is

Ripples in the Well, When No One is Around II

2017

Charcoal on Paper

41cm x 32cm

2018 Rabbit Clinging on to the Well, Cha

Rabbit Clinging on to the Well

2018

Charcoal and chalk on paper

89 x 63cm

2017 Portable H.A.Y.I.A.W I (opened 2),

Portable H.A.Y.I.A.W I (opened)

2017

Graphite on pine wood box

13cm (l) x 19cm (w) x 5cm (h)

2017 Portable H.A.Y.I.A.W II (opened 2),

Portable H.A.Y.I.A.W II (opened)

2017

Graphite on pine wood box

13cm (l) x 19cm (w) x 5cm (h)

2017 Echo, graphite on paper, 56cm x 47.

Echo

2017

Graphite on paper

56cm x 47.5cm

2017 Study Note I, Graphite on paper, 42

Study Note I, 2017, Graphite on paper, 42cm x 29.7cm

2017 Study Note II, Graphite on paper, 2

Study Note II, 2017, Graphite on paper, 42cm x 29.7cm

2017 Surface of the Moon, Bottom of the

Surface of the Moon, Bottom of the Well- Study I

2017

Graphite on paper

42cm x 29.7cm

2017 Surface of the Moon, Bottom of the

Surface of the Moon, Bottom of the Well- Study II

2017

Graphite on paper

42cm x 29.7cm

2017 Illlution, graphite on paper, 42cm

Illusion

2017

Graphite on paper

42cm x 29.7cm

2017, Princess Hang Li Poh, Graphite on

Princess Hang Li Poh

2017

Graphite on paper

42cm x 29.7cm

Perhaps seeing coins inside the well inspired me to be charitable. I went on a school trip to Malacca and gave a few coins to a beggar near the well even though my mother had repeatedly discouraged me for reasons I could not remember.


Later that night, I dreamt of the same beggar turning into Princess Hang Li Po. And with that I felt my action had been vindicated.

2018 The Giraffe (Poem), oil on canvas,

The Giraffe                                 8 Dec 2017

The Giraffe knows not the problems of men
it reaches down a well, like how I’d ride an escalator
it drinks from its image, it does not give a toss
unlike the escalator’s rider whose image is his/her/their boss,
in buildings with escalators, ventilated air and retail outlets
the giraffe would go crazy and run amok
its head on level one, its hoofs on the mezzanine floor
surrounded by security guards with nets and batons
while window shoppers can’t decide
whether to look at the giraffe who is dancing
with security guards with berets and all
or
clothes or shoes or handbags or watches or handphones
or a discounted basketball.

The giraffe knows not the problems we face
it reaches down a well for a drink of water
a trickle - a drop will launch a series of ripples
that will not stop till the water resettles
meanwhile, we have to settle
that deal between our lives, earning money or dreams or the economy
the environment, our future, our children, our parents’ impending deaths
ultimately, we to settle for
that dance of life and death
while the ripples slowly become again a mirror
and the giraffe is gone until the next encounter.

The giraffe unwittingly ties a knot on its elongated neck
while recovering from vertigo due to lack of oxygen to its head
it tries to get up from a bout of drinking water
from the bottom of the well, now almost dry
one won’t be blamed for thinking what he was thinking
one must’ve been thinking the giraffe had been drinking
and drank so much it got drunk

The giraffe had been sinking
to the bottom of despair, but despair was what it was drinking
the only way to escape was to come up for air
it survived the ordeal, but for a knotted neck

The giraffe will not be back.

​

-words by Chang Yoong Chia

-edited by Bernice Chauly

-font - Xu Bing

 

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