SEED aims to contribute to the artistic discourses in the Southeast Asian region through research papers and articles. Browse through our collection of publications, research, and archival materials.
Vials of an oily substance. Faded devotional prayer cards. Used rubber flip-flops. An antique piano. What might seem like a list of items in a junk shop are actual found objects incorporated by artists from the Philippines into contemporary art works. The process of selecting, arranging, and incorporating these old and often discarded materials into contemporary works transforms them into new forms that can stir the imagination and evoke new meanings, much in the same way that the artful combination of words gives poetry its own rhythm, symbolism, and depth.
Download FileThe 100 miniature paintings presented in Ernest Chan’s exhibition document the travels he took during 1993 to 2019 primarily across the Swiss Alps, Mediterranean landscapes, and the water fronts of the Pacific Ocean. These landscapes are at times strikingly familiar, and at times enmeshed with memories of sceneries he had once encountered or imagined. Engulfed by the sensuality of nature, Chan etches the textures of the piercing cold of winter, and the biting heat of summer, into careful, fine strokes of paint onto organic slabs of manicured wood. To capture the expanse and presence of these vistas requires a montage of images, with a prolonged immersion of one’s memories into a plausible composition. These memories that Chan captured of the landscapes were extracted and distilled into dabs of paints, each stroke representing a ray of light, or a blade of grass that builds up to a distinct moment in time where he experienced the staggering power of nature’s beauty.