EUAN HENG
Artist’s Statement: I have always felt a strong allegiance to and admiration for paintings with a certain stillness; in painting, I don’t like noise. In your mindís eye, consider the remarkable simplicity and silence of Fra Angelico’s frescoes painted in the cells of the San Marco monastery. Most recently I have been emptying out my paintings — no vulgar brush strokes and no detail to distract — just gently modulated pigment to activate flat shapes of colour. I want the visual response to my new paintings to be rapid, if possible, after which the viewer, should he or she wish, can invest further time in unpacking the content, or in discovering the paintings’ secrets. By seeking this pictorial suddenness, formally speaking my aim is to avoid the ‘expressionistic’, and to privilege instead the flatness of the paintingís surface.
When I need to imply pictorial space or volume, this can be achieved by the shallow modelling of forms that in part derives from my interest and affection for medieval fresco painting. This intent is also in keeping with contemporary painting practice; it addresses the limits and limitations of the canvas as I consciously fasten all elements of the image to the regular shape of the picture support. A reading of the resultant work functions vertically and horizontally - not ‘in’ or ‘out’ and such a reading not only acknowledges but includes the act of painting as subject.
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