Ancient Equipoise

 

Materials: Chinese ink and water-based mediums on watercolour paper

​

This series sets out to imagine primordial plant life when they first emerged. We were never there to witness their first growths, their first relationships, their challenges, their successes, and the adaptations that took place and evolved over time. It was a time we can never go back to, a place lost - a lost paradise. This sense of lost is a constantly recurring phenomenon, a condition that is inextricably connected to change.  Many factors determine how things change and develop, and human intervention being one of many. I imagine the close relationship between the various clusters, types and forms of plants, in terms of existing as individual entities yet symbiotically interwoven with each other, providing nutrients, shelter, and certain conditions to occur to enable their co-existence. How can we learn to appreciate this relentless will to exist and thrive, in a world shaped by recurring lost paradises? It is not about what we see or what can be seen, it is about what was already there. I have used layers of ink, pigments and water to create gaps, by leaving the negative space untouched. Like this liminal space, invisible and timeless, organisms grow and thrive within, a space imbued with possibilities, much yet-to-be discovered. In the process of constantly defacing the marks, I observe how obliterated marks became alternative forms.