Victoria and Albert Museum Film

Oh! It’s been absolutely ages… Time flew and condensed and dragged and became a thing of wonder. I realise I’ve not posted anything at all for over a year! But I’m super happy to announce that the Victoria and Albert Museum have made a short film about my linocut and monoprint process, and it captures the dreamy mood of creativity very well.

Filmmaker Marissa Keating and cameraman Michael Jones spent a lovely morning in my house, filming me and interviewing me about my process.

They tiptoed around and drank my tea (Iron Goddess of Mercy, no less) and made me feel calm and at ease. Then we walked to the studio, East London Printmakers, to film more printing action using the big beautiful cast iron presses there.

The music was composed especially for the film by Steve Baker (www.stevebakermusic.com), who was inspired by my image of Cassiopeia (the girl looking up at the night sky), which I would love to make into an animation… one day… when I find a spare moment…!

I felt very privileged to watch music being composed, in real time, but I guess it’s a similar alchmical mystery that happens when images are created too.

Anyway, to watch the film, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltiskoXIK2I

 

Love and the Image

Last Sunday I was invited to give a talk at the Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy in London, which got me thinking about the nature of the image, and how it can play an active role in life and society…

Farmhouse in Changsha, 2015. Photo by Wuon-Gean Ho

When I was thinking about how images are seen by the viewer, I realized that the intensity of looking long and hard at a print could amount to some sort of love or devotion. Rural homes in China may lack surface pattern and decoration, yet many have a framed picture of Mao on the wall. Set up high against the ceiling, the face is instantly recognizable, yet because his eyes are facing a vantage point that cannot be met, there is an inscrutability to his gaze. I imagine generations of people living in the household being constantly aware of the presence of Mao, represented by a bit of ink on a piece of paper. The situation is probably similar with other households across the world that include an image of a religious figure, for example, such as Jesus or Mary: images which brought the impossible/ incredibly important/ into the home/ humble daily life. 

The intensity of the transformation of the printed image into an object of power and authority shows us how prints on paper can be transformed into an icon with the look of love, or the loving gaze. Importantly, the figure depicted usually does not return the look of love, allowing the loving contemplation to continue. The viewer can fantasize about the thoughts of the viewed and start to imagine a relationship.

 

Vintage Postcard from Pinterest, unknown source

 In a practical way, relationships have started and flourished as a result of the trade of images. Joan Fontcuberta, the photographer, writes in his book, Pandora’s Camera, of how his father met his mother. It was the custom in Spain in the early 20C for young men to have a photo printed of themselves to send to girls that they fancied. Fontcuberta says that his father’s photo was a winner, a dreamy Hollywood rendition of a handsome young man. Her mother would have had the chance to look at him without the fear of meeting the real person, and begin to idolize the image, and imagine a relationship developing. Her gaze could have caressed his cheek and traced the outline of his jaw, smoothed the unruly eyebrows… When she did eventually have a chance to get to know him better, there was already an amount of affection in the mix.

Agatha Bas (1641) by Rembrandt van Rijn

Then that got me thinking to how often lovers have depicted their loved ones. One only has to think of Rembrandt and Reubens, Freud, Picasso, Dali, Hockney and Bacon to think of how artists have taken the opportunity to caress the flesh and illuminate the skin of their loved ones. The movement of paint on canvas with a brush is like the application of cream to skin, like the grooming of fur, like the licking of lips. Look at Renoir’s flickering depiction of light and shadow on skin of his nude female models. Hockney’s clear depiction of the angle of the neck, the incised outline of the pencil mark must have reverberated in his mind as a virtual tracing of the muscles and shape of the body. It’s not just a mechanical rendition of muscle and form, it’s an involved description of what is there in front of him.

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995) by Lucian Freud

The intense gaze of the artist deconstructs and reconstructs the figure, making the portrayal of the subject a sort of intense familiarization. I wonder if the act of portrayal might also cause the artist to fall in love with the subject. I also wonder if the portrayal of a fragmented/ split/grotesque individual might result in contempt in the artist for the sitter. It certainly seems to me that Lucian Freud had much contempt for his portrayal of a benefits worker, not only does his gaze look down on the body, sprawled in an ungainly way on the sofa, but also that his treatment of the folds of flesh is reverberating with repugnance.

Film Still of Anwar Congo from The Act of Killing (2013) by Joshua Oppenheimer

Truly repugnant individuals have been portrayed in surprisingly sensitive and loving ways. In Joshua Oppenheimer’s film The Act of Killing, the camera spends a long time lingering and looking at the chief protagonist, serial killer Anwar Congo, as he recounts his exploits during the Indonesian massacres in 1965-66. Unlovable from his actions and his behaviour, the long intense gaze of the camera, that does not seem to blink or become diverted by other issues, allows the viewers to develop some sort of connection and ultimately try for a connection or a kind of empathy.

Film Still from Like Water for Chocolate (1992) directed by Alfonso Arau

But why am I telling you about this? I don’t make anything like this at all! I wanted to talk about an aspect of image making that is to do with the casting of spells. The creation of a print does involve a certain amount of time and energy in its formation. During that time, the artist can invest hopes, dreams and prayers in the fabric of the ink. In the film, Like Water for Chocolate (1992) the youngest daughter, Tita is forbidden to marry her true love, Pedro, who is offered the hand in marriage of the middle sister instead, which he accepts so he can be close to Tita. When Tita is making the cake for the wedding, she cries into the batter; and as the cake is consumed by the guests, they are all overcome with sadness and sickness and grief.

I wonder whether the printed image could be a repository of hopes and desires, and perhaps even convey the thoughts and emotions of the maker which were experienced while the image was being made.

Scarf Blur (2014) by Wuon-Gean Ho. Photograph and performance.

Whether this is because the paper retains the energy of the making process, or whether the energy of the shape and lines is able to convey this mysterious message to the viewer is something I’m still looking into…

 

Double Portrait

My mum was born in Malaysia, and came to the UK in the 60s to train as a nurse. Back then, she did not expect to meet my dad, raise a family far from her home town of Ipoh, and spend more than 50 years in the UK, speaking the third language that she has learned, surrounded by people with different ethnicity, working in hospitals as a midwife, helping my dad run a veterinary practice, and thoroughly immersing herself in the economy and politics of another place. She says there’s nothing you can’t do without a bit of effort. This was what a teacher had said when she was thinking of coming to England, even though English was her worst subject at school.

So anyway, I drew her while she told me a bit about her past. You can view the film here at vimeo.com/156493821

vimeo.com/156493821

 

Stoke Junkie

Over the past year, I’ve been hanging out and making a short film portrait (26 minutes) of my parents and their quirks. Mah Soon (dad) and YY (mum) spend their retirement days doing Tai-Chi and body-building, drinking whisky, watching Tarzan and poking fun at each other, until an accident happens that alters their lives deeply.

Here it is: https://vimeo.com/147916273 the password is Stoke

https://vimeo.com/147916273

I’d love to know what you think.

 

Junkie

‘I’d Like to Become a Junkie for One Week or Two Weeks’ is a short extract from a video portrait of an eccentric and lovable couple from Malaysia and Singapore, who came to the UK in the 60s. They left behind extensive families, came to Britain and stayed. Creating a home from home, they surrounded themselves with an eclectic blend of East and West: English wooden furniture, rugs from the Middle East, and Asian cooking utensils; draperies of batik next to velvet curtains; English spoken with Singaporean slang; shepherd’s pie with rice and Chinese tea.

 

Happy Father’s Day

This is a short clip from my newest film project, “Wait and See” which focusses on my dad: a man crazy about bodybuilding, watching Tarzan and collecting antique clocks. He had a champion body in his day, and now at the age of 75 still swims a mile every morning, lifts weights in the evenings, and keeps eating healthily. Despite all this, my mum would rather that he use those muscles on keeping her garden free from weeds…!