El_ph_nt
An ongoing, multiple exhibitions project
2023 - ongoing | 6 painting exhibitions
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This page serves as documentation and a platform to raise funds for the development of Elephant. A long-term, multi-exhibition project with a focus on paintings. Particularly the relationship between images and the language we use to describe them.
The title came from a conversation with Beverly Yong for the project, Dear Bev. Borrowed from the parable of the blind men and an elephant. In this instance, I’m the singular blind man, and painting is the elusive beast I’m trying to figure out.
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Please read the essay Thinking Aloud as a primer on my recent thoughts and experiments with painting. More text, paintings, and exhibitions will come as this project evolve. Below is a pool of paintings that I'll use, and possibly re-use, in the coming years in different ways for different exhibitions.
If you are interested to collect any of the paintings or have questions about them please get in touch. Thank you.
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Related links
Exhibition #1
Exhibition #1 venue
Related texts
For the past 3-4 years I have been painting what I like without thinking too much about a series of paintings or a concrete idea for a show. My belief is that ideas or groupings of paintings will emerge organically from this pool of paintings. I’ll then develop a series of exhibitions by making more paintings around these initial groupings to suit the specificity of the idea.
Paintings with a grey dot are sold.
The first exhibition from Elephant is titled Pictures of Things. This exhibition went through various drafts in its development process. These iterations can be viewed below.
For details of this exhibition click here.
Photo by Ellen Lee
Courtesy of The Back Room KL
6.12.22 Draft E - Picturing Things
Draft E visualization.
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Draft E
Pictures of Things (working title)
Objectives
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Make a small painting exhibition.
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Converge in some ways my painting and video-making processes.
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Develop reproduction/copying as an idea or theme.
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Play
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Some clarity after a few months. It seems obvious now that the act of painting itself should take a more prominent lead instead of words. And because these images can be interpreted in various ways I can use them to speak about things I'm concerned about. Something about the pandemic and the effort to represent that experience. As a group of pictures, it creates a calm space to just sit, stare and make connections. And that's good enough for me.
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Thoughts.
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There's a simplicity to this draft that I can build from.
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Painting seemingly non-figurative images is nothing new but it feels new to me all the same.
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Previous Drafts
the Outside World
Draft A visualization.
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Draft A
An Abstract Fear of the Outside World (working title)
Objectives
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Make a small painting exhibition.
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Converge in some ways my painting and video-making processes.
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Develop reproduction/copying as an idea or theme.
I wanted to quickly make a painting exhibition. My last painting show was in 2015. I think the saying goes, the longer the wait, the heavier the weight. My belief is I’ll gain something that I can later develop from doing the show. However unresolved it may be. In the middle of 2020, a show with seemingly random images seemed like a good idea. I think that’s just my stress manifesting itself.
In 2021, with a growing pool of paintings in my studio, the idea then became about pairing figurative paintings with abstract/geometrical ones. Closeups of body parts and various types of images relating to seeing, compositional grid, calibration test and etc. I thought this best represents my experience of the lockdown years. This listlessness.
Then I made a 3D model of my exhibition at The Back Room. Thoughts.
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The question becomes about the what and why a particular image is chosen. Not a direction I want to pursue.
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Too many sources of imagery. Need to simplify further.
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I want other people’s thoughts. Talking to others this early on is standard M.O. when I’m making videos but not my paintings. A good practice to borrow.
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