Here's the image of the painting for closer inspection. 

I thought I take this opportunity to elaborate the intention of this exhibition. While there's a lot of text already established and press releases sent out, there's a layer or two of background stories that just doesn't get said. While all the things written as the general premise of this body of illustration work has been said, I would like to elaborate all that enfolding process from the seed of the idea to it's served outcome you seen in the exhibition. So if you are curious, this will help give  the exhibition more in depth context and background. 


The obvious statement firstly is that my background and training in Fashion Design has never left me entirely, despite the fact that I've more or less established myself as an artist. The need to return to some form of 'fashion' in it's most casually used term is always something inevitable in my mind. The second statement is perhaps only obvious if you are currently my student, or have been in some type of class with me at the front talking passionately about Fashion Illustration.  Fashion Illustration is an area of interest that I've always been interested in ever since I was about 7 years old. A fashion illustrator was what I would have liked to be when I grow up.  Instead I took the route of the practical and studied Fashion Design, and Fashion Buying and Merchandising. I did the later for 10 years between New York and Singapore, and had enough in 2006. Eight years later, I am finally able to return in a small way or a big way, depending on your perspective, to producing something 'Fashion' focused. 


The cotton jersey Kaftan you see in the exhibition, is the first piece of wearable work I produced since I left the business of fashion. That piece is a small homage to Gabriel Chanel for introducing cotton jersey to the world in the 1920's. It's a prototype or first trial of a clothing line I'd like to produce eventually. The direction of the Kaftan line is menacingly unclear because I wanted was to reproduce the illustration to something one can wear, something I can wear. The silhouette appeared quite regal despite the casual fabric. At the same time it's a humorous piece, who could take you seriously when you wear a bank note on your back? The silhouette is androgynous and gender-free. 


The bank notes design idea first came from a frustration about money, and progressively, it turned a lot more complex then that. The questions I ask myself while producing them in the context of fashion is obvious at first, such as what is money in the context of art, and what is fashion in the context of art. Here are how I re-define those terms: 


Money is a medium of exchange, of value and a medium that perpetuate capitalism and exploitation. The bank note has in some ways lost its inherent meaning of the past, which is as a promise to fulfil an agreement of exchange. According to some holistic practitioner such as Dr Maria Nemeth and Bruce Lipton, Money is Energy.

To me, Art is something that provoke our sense of curiosity, with the ability to educate and entertain a larger segment of people and Fashion is a tool to enhance an individual’s sense of self; that also endows the user or wearer with a particular emotion

 

Make good art says Neil Gaiman, Make a lot of art says Ira Glass, all words that resonates now when the school semester is out and I am shifting my focus on my art practice, part of it is leaning towards the uncomfortable and challenging my fears and focusing on wholly showing up. Gratitude and trust goes well together when I can interrupt the unconscious patterns of thought causing constrictions.  The book I used to refer to a lot is the aptly called Art and Fear by Ted Orland and David Bayles says the fear artist have is not about making good art but having the expectation of having made good art that seems to become pressure without a base.

Drawing is a spiritual practice.

-       Brings you to a space where you cannot be in the past nor in the future. It keeps you in the present.

-       When fully engaged, the self-conscious self disappeared and the artist unfolds his or her truth.

-       Allowing mistakes, adjusting, adding, teaches a healthy aesthetic attitude. An aesthetic attitude is the place where the artist engages with his/her expression, a healthy aesthetic attitude is the absence of fear and trusting the process of production. Often this production is not comfortable, frustrating even and it is just part of the artistic process.

-       Stepping into blank canvas or paper with assured confidence that whatever expression comes out is your doing and that it is a good doing.
All art making is a good doing, not necessarily a good outcome or a good result.  But it is key to understand that artists keeps doing and all doing is good for the artist.

-       Approaching results with grace, with acceptance and with a sense of trust that wherever you are, you don’t stop doing.

-       Being comfortable in uncertainty about each decisions, such as strokes and lines is the path towards good art. 


Resources: john Ruskin on Drawing

Drawing as a spiritual practice is centering the mind on the deep unwavering level of the self by the act of repetition, observation, coordination are all visual meditation.


A visual meditation prolongs the attention on a single observation and takes you out of the rudimentary noise that tends to overwhelm us in every moment.  This promotes the pendulum swing of our mind to swing closer towards the center, a center that is often referred to by meditators and spiritual seekers as the center of the universe.

IMPORTANT – GET CLEAR

Work out what’s important to you. This will help a lot in figuring out plans to move towards it. If you’re vague about what’s important to you, your experience will be vague too. The clearer you can be about what’s important to you, the better and clearer your experience will be, and that means you can fully be IN the experience, without any questions and worry that you might not be in the right place.

So how does one work out what’s important? Some therapist will go through the core belief cards with you, to figure out your 5 top needs. Some self-help books will teach you how to find your core desire belief (Daniel LaPorte’s Desire Map is a very good example). If you are to do this by yourself, here’s a way I started it. It might help you.

1.     Feeling your body.

2.     Slowing down your movement for one hour a day.

Not quite but very similar to the effect of meditation, this is a technique that can be assisted with some ‘minimal sound of music’. Example: AIR or Brian Eno’s Music for Airports) 

Start the timer for 60 minutes, and whatever you are doing, slow the speed down to as slow as possible without changing anything. If you are writing, write slower, if you are typing or being on facebook, just do it slower, if you are drawing, cooking, reading, just slow it all down.  Be aware more of every word, every movement, every piece of carrot you slice….etc)
Observe your breath as you do this.

3.     Sit quietly with a pen and paper   

Count down from 5 to 1, then start feeling the subtle differences in your mind.

Jot down thoughts that come. 

Have fun with it.  
Susan 

Went to Bar Eli in the village yesterday, the owner is a French woman name Elizabeth or affectionately called Liz. She run's the bar with her second husband, a Catalan name Antonio Diminutivo, she speaks good English because she has worked in the UK for 8 years. I had a cafe con leche and was given lovely home-made apple muffins to try, they were delicious. After I asked her about being a subject of my project, she happily agreed to be sketched and eventually asked if I can draw her husband in a bigger format and in colour because she has a self-portrait produced by a friend a long time ago and thought this a great opportunity to have a similar one of her new husband placed next to hers. They’ve been together for one year and she has owned the bar for four.

Sketching Antonio and Liz today and working on the study for Antonio’s face as he looks currently was fun. He has a greying hair, and a distinguished jaw line and a playful but proud eyes. Then she gave me the picture of  a much younger Antonio to do the portrait on and I was surprised and entertained to see the difference. There's a certain beauty in what could be seen as a kitsch way of holding on to the past, a very distant past of her husband's youth. One she could not have experienced in real life in this image of young Antonio. The portrait is possibly her way of looking into the past as a way to bare the present? 

Here's the questions swimming around in my head today: 
1. How much do we look at our past photograph and yearn to be young again? 
2. Do you like your current image? If so, why and if you don't why not? 

I could attempt to answer these myself. I don't often look at my own past photograph, but I do relate to the memory of what I thought I look like then and what I 'thought' I look like now. I don't deny that there's a difference between reality and imagined reality and most of the time we all seem to live in the imagined one. I most of the time live in my imagined idea of what I look like, and I think that a lot of people do too. I don't really want to be young again, not really for the sake of how I look. I am quite happy with the way I look now. 

Whether I like my current image in a photograph? No, not always, most of the time, my imagined image is no where near the image looking back at me from the screen. When I do a portrait of people based on photograph I just took of them, and showed it to them, most people so far has never agreed that this is roughly what they look like. I enjoy this idiosyncratic but really question the way it can really torture people. 

There's a recent podcast on a similar topic on This American Life called Is that What I look like? I've always liked this podcast, as it's stories about real people and after each stories, remnants of those people either stick with you or left some impression.. To listen click here

What are your thoughts about it? I'd love to hear it.