Hi Everyone! Let me introduce you to somebody today.
This is “Sequence” - a 23.5” by 28.5” pen on paper original. I worked on this piece in mid-February 2020. She was exhibited at the Nano Gallery inside the Honolulu Museum of Art School in February and March. However, given the situation we are all in right now, I am afraid the gallery is closed until further notice and the exhibit was cut short. I’m sorry if you’ve missed the chance to see this exhibit.
For those who are familiar with my works for the past decade, I hope you and I share this sense of nostalgia toward this piece. I normally discourage myself from repeating the same pattern and reusing the older materials for the sake of reusing them because I feel that it prohibits growth and discovery. Unless, it’s pattern and material that is still ongoing. But, with this particular piece, I wanted to revisit them to see where my current mentality would take them now. The monochromic leaves, background and disfigured human body. (Although I still do work on disfigured human forms and etc in my own time but they never see the light of day and no one knows about them. This is for another post later on.)
I quickly discovered that - a) I no longer have the patience for this (the leaves) anymore (like, why, me ten years ago, WHY?) and b) I had become better friends with the concept of negative spacing. I know for certain that me ten years ago would try to fill in all that negative space with the leaves and the black background even though that would mean working on this piece 24 hours a day (literally) for the next 5 days and until my right hand melts off of my wrist and my face start twitching from too much coffee and energy drinks. Obviously, I care more about my physical well-being now that I am older. I also discovered that revisiting your older works are like reading back to your diary you religiously kept until you graduate high school. So in conclusion, I’d like to take back my previous statement. This piece had the opposite effect - it brought growth and discovery. It served as a reminder of my foundation and of a new perspective through an old pair of glasses! My brain is itching to work on new pieces with this new revelation- I would do things so differently now.
“Sequence” was inspired by the never- ending and symbiotic cycle of life. That is, life in the natural and organic sense. I have two scenarios for the main character(s) in this piece.
Scenario 1 - The lady decided to take a quick nap in the forest, only to discover later that she had become a fertilizer to fuel the lives around her. The pair of hands at the top right corner is another napper that had succumbed to her fate earlier that day. How fast they are absorbed! The circular pebbles are the agents that is produced by the O’HIA LEHUA to absorb and convert the human forms into food. The new growth always sprouts from the human uterus. In this scenario, the man is the fertilizer but unintentionally.
Scenario 2 - The lady voluntarily became the fertilizer to revitalize the natural world. It was simply her turn to be one. Everyone has their turn.
What scenarios do you have for “Sequence”?
Kris
