Sunday March 29, 2009
Layers of intrigue
By ROUWEN LIN
A Malaysian is fascinating American art lovers with little drops of resin.
FROZEN in motion and immortalised in time, glistening droplets come to life and dance under lights. But despite their polished brilliance, their beginnings are humble. They are but industrial epoxy resin droplets that have been allowed to harden on custom-made acrylic glass or clayboard panels.
This is the artwork of an artist who strives to present contemporary abstraction at its best. Her name is Tan Soh Hoon, though she is better known as Sand T within American art circles.
Sand T will be bringing her well-received solo exhibition to Malaysia in December – which is good news as most of her works, like Concentrate, (below left), don’t photograph well and must be seen in real life to be appreciated. “My work is inspired by light, time, space, movement, sequence, pattern, layers, colours, and composition,” the 40-something artist explains in an e-mail interview.
“I describe my artwork as non-objectional reductive art produced in serial that deals with repetition, iteration, geometric abstraction, monochrome or limited colour, and minimalism,” she says rather intimidatingly. This is an artist who has the training to talk articulately about her work, obviously.
Born and raised in Malacca, Sand attended the Malaysian Institute of Art in 1982 and then moved to Boston in the United States where she enrolled at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Subsequently, she graduated in 1997 from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University with a Masters of Fine Art degree. And she hasn’t looked back since.
Sand has invested the last decade or so in her award-winning non-commercial gallery, ArtSPACE@16, in Malden, in Massachusetts (where she still lives with her artist husband, Wesley Kalloch). But Sand made the decision in May last year to close the gallery and focus on creating and exhibiting her own artwork.
Of these new works, 45 pieces are currently making their debut at the University of Massachusetts’ Student Union Art Gallery in an exhibition simply called Sand T: New Work.
These intriguing art pieces are created using a combination of UV resistant industrial epoxy resin, graphite, and paint on tempered clayboard and acrylic glass panels. Dimensions range from 15x15x3cm to 120x120x8cm.
“The overall mood I’m trying to project in this exhibit is a meditative, yet pleasurable visual experience using essential elements such as line, geometric forms, and structure to create contemporary abstract art.
“The interplay of the lines, layers of resin, and resin droplets create the 3D effect. The drops serve to both distort and magnify the lines,” she explains.
Most of the pieces in the exhibition are monochromatic, with some vivid pieces sporting colours such as electric lime, aqua, vermilion, and red adding punctuation.
This exhibit is sort of a preview of Sand’s major solo exhibit in Malaysia, which will be held at Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah in December. Malaysian art lovers will have a chance to enjoy nearly 100 of Sand’s new works.
Fighting dust
When one looks at a painting on the wall, it is sometimes difficult – particularly for the uninitiated – to imagine how a plain canvas evolved into the finished masterpiece. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the process behind Sand’s three-dimensional works.
She explains that she uses a layered approach, beginning by applying a water- or solvent-based paint onto a clayboard panel. This serves as the base colour. After the paint is completely dry, epoxy resin is poured over and allowed to set for over 12 hours before the glossy surface is sanded down to allow her to draw on the resin layer.
The three-step process of pouring resin, sanding the surface, and drawing the lines is repeated until she is satisfied with the final layer. Droplets of resins are then placed on the surface.
“The placement of the resin drops on the final surface is sometimes improvised, sometimes planned, and sometimes semi-intentional until a ‘visual plane’ emerges,” Sand says.
Sand takes the complicated steps in her stride; what challenges her, it turns out, is housekeeping: she has to prevent dust, lint, and grit from settling onto the resin during the drying process.
“If small particles get into the resin before it sets, I have to redo the whole thing. To reduce dust, I clean up my work table, vacuum my work studio, and keep my movements slow and deliberate.
“Even though the process is time-consuming and labour intensive, I enjoy very much the physicality of sanding the surface, pouring the resin, drawing the lines and dropping the dots.
“My process is very demanding, sometimes to the point of frustration. But working with resin and acrylic glass provides a balance of structure and chaos that is very fulfilling for me,” says Sands, adding that it challenges her desire for problem solving when working with sensitive material, as well as her time management and organisational skills.
Touchy-feely
Sand says she only started incorporating acrylic glass and resin into her artwork in 2000, after managing to salvage used acrylic glass sheets from the department store where she was working part-time.
“As I experimented (with the materials), I soon discovered the endless possibilities the medium provided. I loved the ‘frozen’, clear, and organic characteristic of the resin drips over the edges of the acrylic glass sheet,” she says.
Considering that many curious fingerprint marks are found on her paintings at the end of an exhibition (even though you’re not supposed to touch the works!), it seems that she is not the only one fascinated with them.
“Many viewers are fascinated by the high gloss, tactile surface of my paintings, and they want to find out if the resin drops are dry. Many have said that my paintings are delicious!” she says, adding that she does have samples of work set aside for viewers to touch.
Because much of the visual effects and intricate details in her paintings are only apparent when viewing in person, Sand explains out that is often difficult to capture an accurate representation of her artwork in photographs.
“The source, brightness, and angle of the lighting changes the appearance of the painting. The fine details are usually not noticeable or distinctive in any reproductions. Since accurate reproduction very difficult, I always invite interested persons to view the original creations at my studio or art exhibit,” she says.
Perhaps you need to see it to believe it. Maybe even touch it.
In her own words: What could be more satisfying than being able to appreciate a piece of original artwork up close and in person? Mark December down in your diary!
‘Sand T: New Work’ is on until April 3 at the Student Union Art Gallery, 2nd Floor, University of Massachusetts Student Union (Building No. 41, Campus Center Way, Amherst, Massachu-setts, United States). For more information, go to umass.edu/umhome/events (click on ‘Art Exhibits’ on the right) or e-mail studentunionag@gmail.com.
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