SingartWay Beyond An Artistic Spin
While the producers of the 2010 British-American science fiction heist thriller “Inception” may want their film to be remembered for the intricacies of Leonardo DiCarprio’s character’s commitment to corporate espionage through the infiltration of his targets’ subconscious, its mind blowing moment for me was actually his team’s and victim’s submersion into a dream within a dream within a dream that is within yet another layer of dreams.
And I have since remained doubtful of whether I would ever come across another creative work that would seize my consciousness in quite the same mind boggling way. Well, that day has come: Aiko Tezuka’s exhibition of mentally and spiritually depth defying textiles has arrived in Singapore.
Grippingly titled “Certainty/Entropy”, this Germany based Japanese lady’s tales of the social, emotional, psychological and artistic histories of civilizations are mystically yet intricately inter-woven into and unwoven along seemingly endless expanses of luxurious yarn.
On the apparently fundamental level Tezuka ‘endeavour(s) to weave the fabric of our time into (hers) with both a sense of timelessness and temporariness. Therefore, though it may seem transient and ephemeral, (she) hope(s) the presence of (her) piece (will) be felt far beyond our time’.
Why? Well, Tezuka is absolutely ‘fixated on fabrics (that precede) the 17th century and the ancient eras. When (she) visit(s) fabric museums, (she) often wonder(s) how the early textile artists made such exquisite pieces without electricity (as she knows full well that it is) now impossible to remake 8th century Japanese fabrics, even if we were to use the latest technology, because the techniques have since been lost’.
But we have just touched the surface enveloping this truly inspirational artist. When she is ‘in the museums, (she) feel(s the) ghosts (behind the fabric) speaking to her: royalty and rulers, workshop managers, designers, thread dyers and weavers. They speak of hierarchies and processes, of wealth and strict work conditions (as they) aimed to display their power with the best techniques and the newest patterns. (Yet) the greater the display of wealth… the more (she) feel(s their) fear of losing power and control (over) their workers’.
As a result, Tezuka feels compelled to ‘loosen… up these invisible narratives (by) unravel(ing) forgotten histories or discover(ing) new plotlines. This she intuitively does by ‘pervading (her) creative processes (with) techniques and rules that (she has) developed over time: (including) untying and unwinding fabric, revealing its structure, juxtaposing time and place’.
Moreover, she strives to do it all by not cutting or pasting, or adding or subtracting matter: her primary aim is to maintain continuity within the cloths she has selected to work on.
Yet ‘by unraveling and recomposing the structures and stories hidden within the material she has chosen to work with, (Tezuka tries) to capture… the subjective nature of… overflowing time and the continuous process of metamorphosis’.
When she seamlessly succeeds in this endeavor (she) ‘hear(s) the ghosts of the fabric whispering within (her in ways where she) could disappear and be consumed by the great whirl. It is an ambivalent feeling that consists of both fear and pleasure (as her) ego melt(s) away’.
Yet this timeless moment cannot sustain Tezuka in perpetuity forever. ‘Inevitably, (she) must return to the present day in (her) studio and continue to think about what to create with (her) hands under electric lights’.
Spatially intertwined into this almost spiritual level of emotive pysche is her almost primeval propulsion to ‘deconstruct everyday material in the context of history of painting’ to reach her realization as objects and installations.
Why? Well, Tezuka had been deeply perturbed that she ‘could not find a new way to work painting, the discipline that she (had) trained in (in) Japan’ and so wondered ‘what if, Japan’s history of painting had chosen another way’. This mind shifting ability to think out of the Japanese box wonderfully liberated her to dream up other avenues on how, not only she, but all of us should look to the future.
This freedom has propelled her to deconstruct existing pieces of organic textiles, which she either finds or designs. A deconstruction that selflessly manifests itself through a making and destroying via an unpicking of portions of her chosen fabric to ‘reveal the warp and the weft of the original looming process’ and a ‘weaving into her final works the symbols she downloads from the internet’.
The resulting deconstructed reconstruction is something new that she uses to prompt us ‘to think about deconstructing (our) own lives (at our) turning point (s)’. Like, when we reach our mid-life crisis, as an example.
How? Tezuka’s works suggest ‘think(ing) about (our) own history and mak(ing) something new from that… so (that we, too) may find (our) own (new) way (forward)’.
To help us maneuver our way through her intricate maze of woven, unwoven and re-woven threads that she suggests we drape over ours, Tezuka has chosen to use for her solo exhibition in our little red dot under the tropical sun ancient Japanese, Indian, Indonesian and English fabrics with an integration of pineapples, dragonflies and other Asian and even Singaporean symbols with contemporary ones of modern Western life; like the Visa card, as well as peace emblems and images of radioactive waste.
In so doing, Tezuka attempts to transform the way we look at the world in yet another level: the portions of these quaintly juxtaposed cosmopolitan fabrics she has left unraveled seem to be raising a great red flag over the present world’s whole hearted embrace of a multi-cultural psyche of governance, putting squarely into our individual minds this indelible question: ‘Who am I?’
Undoubtedly, arising ever so insistently from this convoluted tangle of artistic web is this: a genuine need, of historic proportions, of forging a new direction with an even newer chapter of our lives with a crystal clear sense of secure self identity.
Be seductively drawn into Tezuka’s multi-faceted yarn at Third Floor – Hermes, at 541 Orchard Road, Liat Towers Level One, #01-02A, Singapore 238881 before her intriguingly soul-searching exhibition ends on 27 July this year.
