In conversation with Mother Nature
We used to be very close to Nature, living off Nature and
walking with Nature. Those were the days when people were living on landed
properties, be they attap houses, zinc roof wooden huts or simply some mixed
mesh of structure to provide shelter, and spent the days in the field, in the
sea, farming for a living. The animals, pigs, goats, fowls, cats and dogs lived
in close proximity with human beans, sharing the same common space.
In a highly urbanised lifestyle, it is not surprising that
many children today did not know what a chicken or duck looks like. Their lives
circulate from one concrete building to the next and revolve around modern
gadgetry. The only chicken or animal they know are in small pieces on the
dinner table. The closest they get to Nature is likely to be a walk in the
rain.
I have been in conversation with Nature daily, in a way,
through my art. My 7000 pieces of raw images of simply water taken with my
camera will keep me busy for years trying to figure out what Nature has
imprinted in them. Daily I will work on a few pieces, reviewing and
manipulating them for an insight into the thoughts of Nature. Every frame of
digital image that looks innocently bland and boring contains a hidden image or
message, or many images and messages that are waiting to reveal themselves.
Every picture or photopainting that surfaced is the end result of hours of
negotiating with Mother Nature, attempting to understand what Mother Nature
wants to show to the human world.
I spend many hours daily working with Mother Nature and
talking to her, through her works that are deceptively concealed in the
unassuming form of reflection and refraction in a pool of water. Sometimes I
wonder if it is real, that Mother Nature could be behind all the photopaintings
that came forth like a magician and his doves or pulling a rabbit from a hat.
Sometimes I wonder if what I finally put into print is the ultimate image that
Nature wanted. Sometimes I wonder if there is a message, a hidden message of
some kind that Nature wanted to tell us.
Everytime I attempt to look at another perspective, a
totally new concept and picture could appear that is entirely different in
nature from my earlier interpretation. It is like trying to discover a mystery,
to understand Mother Nature through her paintings. Through my photopaintings,
Mother Nature is like being there with me, occasionally tipping me off with a
little exciting shades and shapes that would lead to more fascinating ways of
looking at something so common and unemotional, a reflection or refraction of
nothing but light in water. This is going to be a long conversation with Mother
Nature and is like an unending journey, as I have only taken my first step, a
tip toe, into this wonderland of paintings out of thin air, or simply water.
1 comment:
Hi. One of the very few intelligent and engaging blogs I've so far come across.
It'll be interesting to see and know Singapore in its kampong days, though a friend had mentioned that living in pre modern Singapore was not that easy, that the island has had its share of problems like poor sanitation and terrible floods.
For me, the best part of Singapore is its sea. It gives me this real good sense of solitude.:)
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