Showing posts with label story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story. Show all posts

Monday, January 10, 2022

PG: A Fictitious Story

 Room with a View

 

Needing a respite from sitting on the cold, terrazzo floor, I light my sage bundle. After blowing out the flame and leaving the orange embers on one end, the crackling calms my nerves. The salt lamp on the oak dresser table produces a warm glow and emits a relaxing ambience. I inhaled deeply, to the pelagic smell of an ocean.

 

My rent is cheap for the living standards in this town. The day I received my keys to my basement unit, the only object in the empty room was a lone frameless canvas print held on by blu-tac. I supposed Figura en una finestra (1925) by Salvador Dali was a welcoming gift left from the previous tenant. Perhaps to compensate for the lack of view in this square room. I can totally empathise with the previous tenant because I would sometimes visit windowswap.com just to enjoy window views from around the world.

 

The perks of living in small spaces is that there isn’t much household chores to do. However, for someone living alone, the floor feels gritty often enough for me to suspect that someone had walked around with sands between her toes. 

 

The borderless printing of the art could have blended in to the pink hue of the wall. If not for the yellowing on some surfaces of the non acid-free canvas. The soft patterned curtain draped neatly on the window frame encapsulating the petite physique of an unidentified woman. With her back facing the viewers, her matured body softly moulded within tight nightwear, she stood barefoot in her comfort zone, looking towards a vast of opportunities as though awaiting change. As a replica, the painting has lost some finer details but the harmonious colours exude serenity. 


The painting does give an impression of a window. But can windows look like paintings? I went closer to examine the pixelated brush strokes. There is a natural instinct to hold my breath. Unexpectedly, a cool breeze touched my warm cheeks. I poked my head through the window. The waters receded all at once. My pupils dilated. The land stretches to where my eyes could take me. From afar, I watched from the window a toddler on her mobile scooter going in circles. Despite the vast landscape, she kept gliding along the invisible trail that she had already taken for the past thirty minutes. In the absence of supervising adults, she displays contentment in play alone. As she approached and passed a huge boulder, it began to change its form. The solid mass increases its size exponentially. The larger it grew, the darker it turns. An elephantine echo can be heard across the barren land as it started to chase after the girl. By now, half of my upper torso was hanging out of the window. I tried to shout a warning but there was a lump in my throat. 

 

A force pulled me back into my room. Ouch! I turned around and saw a woman with the most exquisite features despite her heavy chestnut brown hair. Her porcelain skin seems brighter than my future. 

 

Who are you? What are you doing here? Sounding extremely puzzled. 

 

I’m Ana Maria, sister of Salvador Dali. The woman introduced. 

 

***

 

“Stay away, ah girl,” my grandmother lamented. “How many times do I have to remind you? It’s for your own safety.” 


Ah ma* had started lunch preparation even before our breakfast. Slow cooking happens on a weekend when I don’t have to attend Kindergarten. My nose follows the smell of the burning charcoal. My Ah Ma is making Claypot Fish Maw Soup. She sat on a low wooden bench and used the charred bamboo fan to maintain gentle heat. The gas stove is right behind us but Ah Ma seldom uses it. She thinks food cooked slowly using the traditional charcoal stove will get the best out of the ingredients. 

 

The trick to fully utilising this cooking method is to stand a one metre radius from the red charcoal stove. The heat warms up my body while I hold on to grandma for security. Gazing into the small window at the bottom of the traditional stove, a blend of warm colours brighten up my day. When I’m tired, I like sitting on the floor to view the glowing charcoal and wonder how the black charcoal turns ash white by lunch. 

 

“Come, let me do the tails again,” my back facing grandma as she helps me readjust my unlevelled pony tails. 

 

“My mother was a great cook. She prepares food for a family of nine every day, three times a day! I know how to poach, steam, double-boil, slow-braise, stir-fry, blanch, braise and stew, all thanks to her!”


My grandma is a Teochew. She spoke exclusively in the Teochew language (潮州话) which is a Chinese dialect also known as Southern Min language. Teochews originate from the Chaoshan region in Guangdong Province located in the Southeast of China. It is a region blessed with a long coastline along the East China Sea. My grandma is from Shantou, a city in Guangdong, China. She moves to this neighbourhood when she arrives in Singapore with my grandfather.


        I grew up in Block Two, Jalan Kukoh with my grandma. All of the units are public rental housing. When I walk, my eyes were mostly downcast. Terrified of stepping on spits, dog’s poo and unidentified semi-solidified substances. Grandma warned me to never go barefoot outside the house. Sometimes, used needle syringes appear in the drain or behind shrubs. Litters strewn across the lift landing or void deck are daily occurrence. I will hold my breath as I walked past the corridor that were stacked with personal baggage. Pungent smell of urine, most likely by drunken would greet you at the staircase. I was ten when I had to attend my school’s overnight camp. After much persuasion, my teachers finally let me sleep on the cold, hard floor instead. The body bags carried away by the paramedics had too much resemblance with sleeping bags. Grandma and I are living in felicity but I cannot wait to move out with her. 

 

As a teen, I am careful not to reveal my exact address to my friends. Once, a friend’s mother insists on sending me home. I politely declined but gave in eventually and requested to be dropped off at a bus stop near Robertson Quay. This is an area that residents living in Jalan Kukoh could only dream of. It is clusters for million-dollar homes, al fresco dining along the Singapore River and art galleries. Waving goodbye, I ensure that I walk a short distance towards my said estate. Once I am sure that I am not in view from her rear mirror, I head the opposite direction. The overhead bridge at Havelock road connects Jalan Kukoh and Robertson Quay. But in no way, the residents on either sides can connect. 

***


“Quit staring at me! Say something,” bellowed Ana Maria. 


“Erm, I studied about you in Art history in University. I know, I know, I must be tired and I’m sure I’ll be waking up soon.” I was impressed. My room appeared exactly the same in my dream. My GrabFood Delivery Starter Pack is where I had placed it. 

 

“You’re definitely not dreaming, I’ve been expecting you.” Maria said calmly. “Someone sent me.” 

 

            “Who?”

 

“Come, let me bring you somewhere.”

 

In front of Paragon Shopping Mall along Orchard Road, facing Ngee Ann City. 

 

“What do you see?” Maria points to the shopping mall across the street. 

 

“Why are you taking me to a mall?” 

 

To have seven levels of polished granite and marbled establishment in 1993 in the city is a grandiose plan. An egregious national symbol for prosperity and progress. Behind all those glitz and glamour, the premise of where Ngee Ann City now stands used to be a cemetery known as Tie Swah Ting (Tai Shan Ting, 泰山亭).

 

“Tell me, what does the layout of the mall reminds you of?” Ana Maria prompted.

 

“I don’t know.” Fumbled on my words. 

 

When the land here was going to be developed, exhumation needed to be done. Between 1951 and 1953, more than twenty thousand graves in the cemetery were exhumed. To appease the spirits, the mall was modelled after a Chinese tombstone. The feature of a tombstone comprises of three columns with the one in the middle erected higher than the other two. The five flagpoles in front of the main building represented joss sticks and the fountain signifies wine as an offering. 

 

I must have looked dumb. Ana Maria jolted me out of shock.

 

In 1845, Mr Seah Eu Chin and twelve other Teochew merchants representing the surnames Tan, Lam, Chua, Ng, Quek, Teo, Goh, Sim, Yeo, Chan and Heng came together to form a fund, known as Ngee Ann Kongsi. It is to be used for the promotion and observance of the doctrines, ceremonies, rites and customs professed or maintained by the Teochew community in Singapore. Due to the fact that my father has registered me as a Huang instead of the Chinese dialect Ng during birth, Ana Maria had a hard time locating her last person. Thus, the eleven of us string together by a common heritage was somehow a tenant before in my room.

 

Before I can ask more whys, Ana Maria brought me to main entrance of Ngee Ann City. Rumour has it that if someone of Teochew descent placed both feet on a cracked tile nearest to the road side, perpendicular to the mall, a vision would emerge. Little did I know that it is true. We waited for a group of tourist nearby to leave before my sceptical self followed Maria’s signal. I hesitate. Then proceed to put equal weight on both feet. The moment the crown of my head is lifted, I possess a bird’s eye view, like in Google map, in a barren land. My usual perception is dislocated and the initial effect is obfuscating. Imagine seeing yourself and your vicinity from the top but your physical body remains grounded. This visual information received by my brain prompts a cognitive adaption. There’s a heightened sense of bodily and spatial awareness as I can no longer rely on habitual movement. Negotiating in the new space, I clomped about ponderously on the sandy ground. The seemingly infinite land was eerily quiet. Moving about aimlessly, a bourgeoning black dot from a distance emerges and rolls towards me. My instinct to shout for Maria only yield an unfamiliar, deafening silence. Only my own voice reverberating in my chest. Just then, a white door not too far away appears like an exit strategy. Slightly elevated. One leg over, and another. I throw myself over the bottom of the door frame and landed with a thud.  

 

This new place was dim and has a whiff of sage. Feeling weary, I push myself up to sitting and empty the sands out of my shoes onto the familiar terrazzo floor. The glint in the self-portrait tells me that there’s more than meets the eye.



References:

https://explorersg.com/explorersingapore/ngee-ann-city-a-former-cemetery/

https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1190275 

Friday, December 31, 2021

PG: A Fictitious Story


Georges Seurat. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. 1884 – 1886. The Art Institute of Chicago 


    Thirty seconds. The average time museum-goers spent in front of artworks. Have you wonder what paintings think of you? Since 1926, I have spent most of my time observing people. People from all around the world visit between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. thrice weekly. In small groups or sometimes in droves together with a gallery guide. The code-switching between speakers, despite my ignorance, are music to my ears. If they stand too close to me, I will get to view their receding hairline. Their squinting faces amuse me when they stand further away. I love how young children shriek in joy, point at me and whisper to their friends. Once, a teenage girl stood motionlessly in front of me and cried silently. I would have given her a hug if not for the protective barrier between us. My name is A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1886) and I hang proudly on the wall of the Art Institute of Chicago in the United States.


    They say behind every successful painting is a great painter. The first dab of paint on my skin was made by Georges Seurat in 1884. Using simple lines, he evokes the attitude of the theatrical dresses. Stripped of affectations, the frocks follow the curves of the body and hang straight down, the close-fitting tunics, the tight jackets and the drainpipe trousers. Once the first great impression is worn off, the exaggerated stiffness of the people softens. The dots of colour become less fatiguing and a shower of sunlight filters through the trees. 

 

As the deceased painter’s legacy, I possess insights which cultural experts and art collectors do not. They speculate a lot and I shall commend their efforts for devoting their lives to studying Art.


            One thing I love about my home is that the museum opens to all visitors for free in the summer and the winter. I get more views in these times as they are keen to assist the homeless in providing shelter and maintaining their dignity during the harsh weather. 

 

            You will be forgiven for thinking that I’m just a pretty painting. In fact, Monsieur Seurat had painted me as a subtle parody of the bourgeois class due to the social conditions of Paris at that time. There was a massive and controversial renewal programme under urban planner Georges-Eugene Haussmann (Glancey 2016). His short brushstrokes make reference to modernism with its mass production and social alienation. At first glance, you see people enjoying a carefree and relaxing time. See those rowers in the distance? Donned in white shirts and red caps, all bent at the same angle. Their similarities hardly differ from the rest on land as though giving the impression of the intense life that permeates on Sundays in the summer. 

 

            Why Sundays? You might ask. Seruat spent a considerable amount of time at the scene to observe “a genuine setting where the working class and the fashionables” congregate (Russell 146). A day of pleasure and presenting your best selves in public offers no place for the poor. Mondays are better for them as there is no dressing up to do and they did not have to appear in public spaces on Sundays in workers’ uniforms. 

 

            I can offer more than visuals. You see, when Seurat was sharing a studio space with his artist friend, Aman-Jean, he shows his day sketches of the Seine to his friend and they have intellectual discussions all night. Seurat often proclaimed in Latin: “Nihil humanum alieum mihi est.” (Nothing human is foreign to me) (Feldman 70). He wished to subvert the banal promenade of these people in their best clothes in public space without pleasure. People are equipped with gestures of soldiers, each troop on its separate base, casting shadows like islands. Superficial and formulaic, the rigidity of Parisian leisure, captured tired and stiff from a single vantage point. According to Smith, Seurat was greatly influenced by academic, Charles Blanc’s colour theory (104). The small calculated touches produce an amalgamation of colours blended by the retina. 

 

            Unlike me, not many people can claim to be a Supercentenarian. Perhaps I know more about human nature than you do. Passed from an art collector to another before finding a permanent home, I watched your gaze when you look at works of art. The stiffness in people and their punched-out forms have a striking image for the viewing and the viewed. With the exception of the dogs, monkey and a running girl depicting movement, the rest adopt reserved gestures and hardly interact. You will never find out the relationships between these people in this gathering. Who are the solitary people? Who came with their family or friends? However, this is not important because Seurat was intrigued with the intermingling of class occupying the same space and shade. 

 

In summer and winter the homeless and the museum-goers gather here but there is an unspoken rule to ignore one another, remaining in one’s invisible boundaries and keeping to themselves. It is hard to tell who the homeless are because they are decently dressed and shaved. You just have to study them more intently.

 

The contrasting theme of grand and the restrained is certainly a pattern. You can compare parasols and trombones, puffs of cigar smoke and butterflies, hats bristling with brims and flowers, women seated like Egyptian scribes, paired soldiers, the strings of a fan in arabesque lays on the grass, pinched waists, bosoms lifted and those comical right-angled bottoms. These solemn characters aim to let others know that they possess freedom ─ in the form of new clothes, being equipped for the afternoon with novels, newspaper and time to smoke a pipe. For the museum visitors, they are most probably not stuck in a minimal wage job to be able to spend their dime and time here.


Eugene Soh. Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Singapore. 2014. Dude.sg


 

I overheard two visitors from Singapore saying they saw a similar artwork (Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Singapore) back home. I really wanted to know if the artist had appropriated my monsieur’s work. I wonder which dude has the nerves to do this! It turns out that he is known as DUDE. He did give credit but it makes me angry knowing that he rode on my monsieur’s glory and earned himself an income and solo exhibitions. 

 

connoisseur doesn’t appear overnight. It is the daily habits that cultivate a man. Monsieur adopted a strict daily ritual and followed them religiously up till his death. He started his day as early as four in the morning and never let refined sugar passed his lips. He took short breaks in the middle of the day before turning in at midnight. In 2004, I was shown together with “more than 130 accompanying paintings and works on paper” (Druick and Groom 34). He timed his work according to the season and how much light he received per day. The colours perceived by the eyes under artificial lighting may differ so painting under natural lighting produces the best effect. During the winter, Seurat maximised his daylight hours by painting until dark even if he had to forgo his meals. Knowledge gained from classical colour theory does not easily transfer to using colour in painting. The colour pigment involves “accurate perception and manipulation of hue, value and intensity.” (Edwards 19). Acquiring knowledge is not enough, consistent hands-on practice and experimenting is vital.

 

Oh! Enough said. How I miss the smell of my old home. You know you have stepped in an artist’s studio when you inhale the scent of sweet intoxication ─ turpentine and linseed oil. Floating, falling, sometimes, a little light-headed. I can’t even get fresh air outside. After the painting has finished, the smell would linger in the air for months, depending on how thick the oil paints are applied. In comparison, living in an art museum now has its pros, my living condition has definitely improved. First, it is amusing to see humans assign an obnoxious amount of value and attention on me. Well, not that I am complaining since I have filtered air and controlled humidity as treats for my lungs. My skin, I mean my paint does not crack easily too. You know that feeling of chapped lips? The annoying tightness around the lips that I no longer have to worry about. When it happens, there is a team of professionals on standby to fix it. 

 

Now that my anger has simmered, I am beginning to cultivate an appreciation of new media, mainly photography. The dialogue between the Singapore visitors helps me to understand more about the context of viewing. At first glance, I thought the artist, DUDE, had found an easy way out to fame. You know that almost everyone can hold a camera now but not anyone can claim to be a photographer, right? That artwork was a heavily edited piece which took him six months to achieve. Some questions to ask ourselves include, where and how was the location in Singapore chosen? Did the time of the day affect the quality of the shoot? Is the location accessible by public transport? How did the artist arrange for the people in the photograph to gather? Do the people in the photograph decide their own dressing? Why did the artist choose to replicate Seurat’s painting? What other constraints did he work within for the production of this photograph? Where had the artist intend for his audience to view his work? Looking at a digital image online will construct different expectations compared to viewing it in an art gallery or museum. Placing it at an art institution will certainly add “an aura of seriousness of intellectual or aesthetic intent to the picture” (Leeuwen and Jewitt 65). 

 

Another piece of valuable information that the naked human eye cannot achieve is knowing the chemical analysis of paintings. Thus, whatever I have mentioned until now is based on visual facts. Do you know that Art Institute conservator, Inge Fiedler is the one who had discovered that “zinc yellow is the main culprit in the discolouration” of Seurat’s painting? (Stuckey 59). All the zinc yellow paint strokes became brown and so did other colours that he mixed himself such as greens (yellow and blue) and oranges (yellow and vermillion). I have picked up numerous tips just by listening to conversations between art experts. In print, ink or chemicals used in dye, just varying the amount of just three primaries cyan, yellow and magenta can yield all colours because they align with the physiology of human colour perception. Colours from paint tubes are not true colours. They contain trace chemicals that reflect light rays other than single, pure wavelengths, hence causing problems in mixtures with other pigments (Edwards 22). When the digital image is being viewed on a screen, the colours on the screen is made up of tiny dots of light called phosphors grouped in red/ green/ blue sets known as pixels. These phosphors emit coloured light when excited by electrons. Thus, varying the red, green and blue combinations of phosphor excitement within the pixels can produce a full range of colours (Edwards 22). 

 

Dissecting the theory of colour to individual dots, I draw similarities to the gulfs between the people in the artwork. Wholesome image on the surface, yet isolated amid a crowd. Most preoccupied with personal belongings, barriers against the demands of human interactions. Armed with an armoury of camera and phones, people use them to broker and buffer interactions. A plausible behaviour on how they deploy technology in the century of so-called connectivity. There is value and quality in everydayness and I encourage you to be observers of everyday life.




Works Cited 

Druick, Douglas W. and Groom, Gloria. “Seurat and the Making of La Grand Jatte.” USA Today. July 2004, p. 34.

Edwards, B. Color: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors. Penguin Group Inc., 2004. 

Feldman, E. B. Practical Art Criticism. Prentice Hall, 1994.

Glancey, J. “The man who created Paris.” BBC Culture, 26 January 2016, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160126-how-a-modern-city-was-born

Leeuwen Theo and Jewitt Carey. Handbook of Visual Analysis. Sage Publications. 2003. 

Russell, John. Seurat. Spain. Thames and Hudson, 1989.  

Smith, P. Impressionism. Calmann and King Ptd, 1995. 

Stuckey, Charles. “True Colors: Seurat and La Grande Jatte.” Art in America, pp. 57–63.