Sunday August 19, 2007

Still new after all these years

An artist turns to house paint to push boundaries in a solo show that is fresh and brave.

By VIVIENNE PAL
starmag-feedback@ thestar.com.my  

IVAN Lam’s done it again. He’s forsaken the familiar for untried – and to hell with the critics. 

The 32-year-old’s latest solo exhibition, Ivan Lam: After All These Years, is a show of derring-do, laced with drama, inspired by daring and backed by cartloads of confidence.  

With Lam, you expect nothing less. 

Sushi Bar (The Place Where We First Met) started experimentally, marking the beginning of a truly brave new series. – Photos courtesy of Wei-Ling Gallery

“Yes, it sounds quite dramatic,” he admits wryly. “But there is drama involved in the creation of the work, and the show, in its entirety, commensurates with the theme’s dramatic quality.” 

After All These Years follows his solo Plosive in 2003 and CMYK, which was due an airing in 2005. The latter, unfortunately, did not see light of day as the gallery involved deemed its concept too difficult to sell. Its description does sound a little, um, scary: it was a painstaking manual reproduction of commercial print using the process colours of cyan, magenta, yellow and black via silkscreen, right down to every single dot used to measure resolution.  

“It didn’t bother me; I just wanted to get it out of my system,” says the award-winning artist in retrospect. 

(Among the many honours Lam has garnered over the years is the grand prize at the 2003 Philip Morris Prize and, most recently, getting into the top 10 final list in the prestigious Sovereign Art competition in Hong Kong.) 

After All These Years smacks of Lam’s methodological approach tempered by enthusiasm and informed by a joyful embrace of the unknown. 

It is also a (more-than-usually) painterly reflection of Lam’s surroundings and his state of mind captured at different moments in time. It took him more than two years to complete. 

Palette #7 is Lam ‘rolling the credits’ and acknowledging the different colours he used in this series.

It is Lam taking risks – again – in both method and media. Free of the association with consumerism his works have been known for in recent times, this show is fresh and brave.  

All 11 pieces in the series were painted with unconventional pigment: Nippon paint instead of predictable acrylic, or with the silkscreen method with which Lam has been linked for years. 

“I hadn’t painted since I left college and I’d had enough of silkscreen,” he explains, adding that college was more than 10 years ago.  

Work on the series began experimentally enough, with Lam fooling around with paintbrush and polymer synthetic house paint. 

“The paint from the art stores just didn’t cut it anymore, and the new technology of being able to mix house paint from the ranges in the colour charts provided a platform for me to do more,” he says.  

This was when pluck and sudden revelation combined to form the perfect impetus for his show.  

“It is the manipulation of the media rather than the media themselves that makes the finished product good. Every medium has limitations, but if you deal with it long enough, you will know its strengths,” he explains. 

"It is the manipulation of the media rather than the media themselves that makes the finished product good" IVAN LAM

Armed with wide-eyed curiosity, Lam began his “experiment”, completing Sushi Bar (The Place Where We First Met), his first piece, in three months.  

There is uniformity in this series. Each piece is conducted on primed black canvas, boasting more than 100 different tones – of which only about eight were taken off the Nippon colour chart.   The colours are painted in multiple layers to replicate the perfect flatness of wall paint.   More remarkably, each colour is painted singly, with no blend or overlap, leaving a discernible “outline” that distinguishes one section of colour from the other and enhancing simultaneous contrast without compromising the fluidity of tonal gradation.  “By the 50th colour, I’d forgotten which colours I’d used on the canvas,” Lam jokes. “Eventually, it became an instinctive process.” 

By his third piece, Russian March (Promise Me You will Hold My Hands), Lam had decided on a tragic narrative of star-crossed lovers who had met in a sushi bar.  

But don’t be constrained by that, urges Lam. Viewers are given free reign to interpret each painting, which serves as a marker in every individual’s story.  

There is also a discernible sense of direction and movement in the pieces, thanks to Lam’s impeccable sense of composition.  

Mum & Child (The Pain is Unbearable But I Must Go On) and Surgery (Sorry Sir But We Did Our Best) hold particular poignancy for Lam, as his wife had given birth during the production of the former, while the latter saw Lam reaching a point of exhaustion.   “Yes, the show is semi-autobiographical,” he acknowledges. 

 

Those familiar with his works will find the Russian March intriguing, as figurative works have never been Lam’s cup of tea. This first attempt sees him painting not just one but many figures.  

By Home (We are Finally Home) it is clear that Lam has fully conquered the series, which culminates gloriously with Heaven (Heaven Can’t Wait).  

                                                        

In trying to outdo himself yet again, Lam has come full circle in terms of the pop influences surrounding his art, which he attributes to his background in graphic design.  

The series truly bears testimony to Lam’s drive to be true to the artist within.