Suzann Victor, Jane Lee, Han Sai Por, and James Page
By A&M

From 11 February to 6 March, Gajah Gallery showed ‘Intimacies of Scale’, a group exhibition featuring three large-scale works: ‘River of Returning Gazes’ by Suzann Victor, ‘Beyond Infinity’ by Jane Lee and ‘Sprouting’ by Han Sai Por. These were created at Yogya Art LAB (YAL), the gallery’s foundry and experimental art space in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

In this multi-part interview, we speak to the artists and James Page, YAL’s Foundry Director about the unique experience of creating each of the works remotely. As they reflect upon the show, we can appreciate not only the challenges of working creatively around travel restrictions, but also the pleasures of bringing it to fruition as a team.

Suzann Victor

As a long-time collaborator with Gajah Gallery, how did the process of making the work for this show continue developing your relationship with the team? Was there any shorthand you relied upon in creating the work, and/or did any new challenges present themselves?

That’s a really meaningful question because it introduces the idea that making an artwork is also about the making of the relationships that make the artwork.

My primary form of contact with the team is through James, with whom I speak to several times a week and pore through a high volume of texts and images regularly. Having said that, I would at times receive “surprise messages” from the Indonesian team via video. For example, I had requested to do a scale comparison where one of our dear technicians had to stand quite still beside the work while being videoed. In the midst of the footage, he suddenly sprung into action with both hands signing a “peace” symbol and a cute smile. It was very special to see that, as it is a message within a message that fosters our human connection outside of “work” mode. I often hear the music that the team is listening to on these videos as well and I get a sense of their mood and creative spirit, like a pulse.

Conversely, when a series of artworks is developed beyond the initial piece, I get the impression that the team is also getting to know the conceptual and aesthetic pulse of that series, from which everything else flows, rather than the “shorthand” that you speak of. The most important challenge is often human-related ones, rather than completion timelines or material supply etc. and this is especially so with James as I feel that our communication is increasingly intuitive, resonant and in sync, everything to do with “pulse detection” which is not something that is developed and honed over chronological time but in times of not only challenges, difference or crisis but in affirming outcomes.

Over the course of my practice, I have worked with many different art teams for various art projects, and of course, this means working with a rotating set of individuals for a fixed time depending on the artwork requirements. With the Gajah Gallery’s team, the relationship has been long-term over several years, which means that it has become close-knit, mutually caring and always respectful.

Suzann Victor, ‘River of Returning Gazes’ (detail), 2022, acrylic on canvas, acrylic strip and lenses, 258 x 18 x 78cm. Image courtesy of Gajah Gallery.

In ‘River of Returning Gazes’, there is a lot waiting to be uncovered behind the lenses. How does the hide-and-seek element of experiencing the work convey its meanings?

River of Returning Gazes is a restless work that calls upon an equally restless viewer. Never at once can the entire image under the lenses be seen clearly - an antithesis to the conventions of full display in exhibition-making practices. Inbuilt into the work, this setup activates the kinetically engaged viewer who far from being still, goes up close to the artwork, bending, leaning, elevating or extending the body for better vantage points as they peer through the lens apertures to hunt and see(k) what is elusive and hidden from view.

As a transparent optical device, the lenses “dilate” vision by allowing more to be taken in through magnification but at the cost and in isolation from the whole i.e. the lenses create a discontinuous means of looking by breaking up the previously composed narrative beneath it in the first place, including the masking effect where small sections of lenses overlap.

This form of obscuring rematerialises moments of colonial encounter captured in the vintage postcards of the 1950s to the 1970s upon which this series is based. What was transfixed and ethnographically vulnerable to the reductive and dehumanising intrusion of the colonial eye behind the camera – the invasive exposure of the local and indigenous – are now gathered under the lenses in such a way that the act of looking at them is far from neat and totalising as before but instead, disruptive, effortful and fraught with delays to visual gratification.

Why did you decide to place a younger Suzann Victor within the artwork, and how has the way you’ve viewed yourself as a citizen of a once-colonised Singapore shifted over the years?

My adoptive father lived through the time depicted in these postcards – at the cusp between a British colony and independence. He, like numerous Singaporeans, were part of the early trading economies that existed around the Singapore River.

I wanted to dream my father’s memories, to inhabit his time, and be with him virtually, imaginatively, posthumously, to “experience” his experiences to gain a deeper understanding of his sacrifices, his selflessness and form of masculinity during a once-colonised Singapore that seems so out of “sight” against an ever-morphing Singapore cityscape, landscape as well as the scapes of the mind and heart.

Jane Lee

How do you push the boundaries of the painting medium with your experimentation in sculpture?

My painting practice basically asks: what is a painting? For these works, the painting’s mediums, such as the paint, canvas, and stretchers, become my subject matter. Basic elements like colour and process all become the main concept of my painting. When it comes to sculpture, I’m not playing with paint. The materials have changed, therefore the parody is different. For instance, in painting, colours play a significant role; but in sculpture, I am no longer concerned with colour. The sculpture has to be something else, depending on the materials I’m playing with. It’s only when I see the materials that I begin to see how I can potentially push and manipulate them. Only during that time do I know the direction of my sculpture. Ultimately, the material dictates what I’m going to say.

Could you talk about your choice of materials and colours for ‘Beyond Infinity’, and how the work builds upon or deviates from e.g. the ‘Mondrian’ series that you created at YAL which was shown at ‘Navigating Entropy’ at Gajah Gallery in 2020?

The ‘Mondrian’ work was part of a series that referenced Old Masters in art history. I intended to transform an otherwise flat painting by Mondrian into a sculpture, therefore playing with the lines between two and three dimensional forms. ‘Beyond Infinity’ however has nothing to do with this series. While I’m still working on the Old Master series, which you will see in my next solo show at Gajah in October, ‘Beyond Infinity’ is different.

Because it’s a more sculptural piece, colour is not important in the work. I employed only basic colours–black and white—to express the idea of the work. The piece is predominantly made of mirror finished stainless steel. A painted black surface faces the outside and the mirror finished surface faces the inside, so that when the circles were carefully laser-cut and bent outwards, the mirror, along with dozens of other laser-cut circles glued on the flat surface, could be revealed to the audience. This allowed the work to reflect both its inner and outer spaces. Physically reflecting on itself, the work allegorically communicates the infinite nature of self-reflection. Yet just as the work has this depth and seriousness, I also inject a sense of playfulness. I want audiences to really feel like they can interact with and be part of the work.

Usha Chandradas, the author of the show’s catalogue essay, also wrote quite movingly about how the laser-cut portions are like “dangerous articles in themselves with the ability to hurt and maim if touched carelessly or in violent ways”. The work has this kind of contradiction between pleasure and pain, and how both experiences are part of any meaningful self-reflective journey.

Could you speak generally about working with YAL and Gajah Gallery, and how the YAL as a resource gives to you as an artist in addition to working with the gallery?

In my past painting practice, I used to work alone in my studio. I did everything on my own, within my individual knowledge and abilities. In YAL, which is headed by James, the team has so many different talents and abilities, and knowledge of their locale. Working with them allows me to expand my ideas and explore things that I cannot in my studio.

Like for my new series, we also play with lenticulars, which allow images to move and the audiences to see the work from different angles. The meticulous skill of laser-cutting also cannot be done alone in the studio. It’s the same with sculptures: especially because they are so heavy, I cannot work on them by myself. With YAL, I can explore as much as I can, because there are many people there to help me. It only gives me more freedom to push my ideas and mediums beyond what I normally do, and to hopefully create more interesting artwork. Collaborating with others also allows for unexpected things to happen along the way.

Han Sai Por

What were the challenge (and advantages, if any) of creating a sculpture remotely? You have worked in a variety of mediums, including stone, glass, metals, paper and even ice. How did you decide on cast bronze for ‘Sprouting’?

Spring at Revenue House was my first piece of outdoor bronze sculpture cast in a Singapore foundry. Though challenging, I was personally involved in the whole process. I have made several bronze sculptures in Thailand and China, and fought to supervise the casting process. I’ve learnt through the working process from each piece of work in a different medium that the work represents the language and the soul of an artist, which involves their living experience and feelings of things within their own visual expression.

‘Sprouting’ is a piece of work where I am absent from the process, though with good communication through the internet, I provided the necessary information with maquettes, drawings and photos. In ‘Sprouting’ you can find the organic forms, sensual lines and colours which are essential elements of my work.

How do you see your work interacting with the others in ‘Intimacies of Scale’?

I am familiar with Suzann and Jane’s works, and for me, sculpture is an art form for engaging in three-dimensional space, and communicating through interaction. It is a form of engineering and technology, and a way to convey the artist’s message, where the different mediums have their symbolic presentations.

James Page

Installation view of ‘Intimacies of Scale’, 2022. Image courtesy of Gajah Gallery.

How did the exhibition come about? Did the idea of the exhibition come first and then works were created for it, or were the works in progress and then grouped together for the exhibition?

The idea of the exhibition grew during the pandemic, as part of a long-time goal to offer the services of YAL to some of Singapore’s most successful and senior artists. Having already established working relationships with Suzann and Jane, it was a great honour to introduce the foundry to Han Sai Por for the first time as well

What does the title ‘Intimacies of Scale’ mean to you?

To me, the title and the show explore the meaning of scale beyond the literal sense: yes, the works are all physically large, but they also navigate scale in different and complex ways —whether through nature, history, or the infinite layers of one’s interiority. The scales of the artworks are thus not just large for the sake of spectacle, but they lend to the concepts of the works. They urge you to observe the works close up, to step back and see them from afar, and to quite literally walk around and immerse in them to discover what the artists are communicating, both in the larger picture and the details. In a way, the title is a paradox in itself: one would not typically associate the word intimacy with vastness. But the works in the show reveal how large-scale, monumental works can also be intimate, precisely because of how they can envelop you in their textures, layers and details, especially if they are thoughtful and well-executed.

“To me, the title and the show explore the meaning of scale beyond the literal sense: yes, the works are all physically large, but they also navigate scale in different and complex ways —whether through nature, history, or the infinite layers of one’s interiority. The scales of the artworks are thus not just large for the sake of spectacle, but they lend to the concepts of the works.”

— James Page

How has the Yogya Art Lab team evolved or grown since we featured them in our last story? And how has your role as the intermediary between the artists and the YAL team evolved now that you are in your 8th year in the role?

Since ‘Navigating Entropy’ and the unfortunate travel restrictions of the pandemic, I am proud to say YAL has not slowed down. During that show, we launched the first of Suzann’s new hand painted series of lens work. We are still progressing with that successful series, while also exploring aluminium casting and her eggplant work in the 5th Passage show. Jane has progressed to a new series of laser cut stainless steel circular works, which were shown for the first time in the ‘Intimacies of Scale' exhibition. We are currently in the process of making a complete, separate series of new works for her solo show at Gajah this October. We have also completed a new sculpture by Jogen Chowdhury and are currently finishing a new 3-metre-high shark sculpture for Ashley Bickerton. I am looking forward to getting back to YAL in May, after two years of constantly video calling and exchanging images via WhatsApp with the team.

I think the evolution at YAL is now in the form of the variety of skills we offer. Whereas before, we specialised in clay modelling and foundry casting bronze and aluminium, we now have a graphic design department, with 3D modelling and 3D scanning capabilities. We also have experience with concrete casting, stainless steel fabrication, wood carving and pulp manufacturing. As always, our intention is to offer as wide a range of materials and skills as possible to the artists who are keen to work with YAL.

In the same story on A&M, you indicated a wish to expand further into working with stainless steel and 3D-printing aided design. How was Lee’s work ‘Beyond Infinity’ which features mirror finish stainless steel a push in this direction? And have you experimented with 3D-printing aided design?

Yes, especially with Ashley Bickerton, the progression and speed of design has greatly helped in the design of the new shark sculpture, which we are making at both 1.2 and 3 metres. During the pandemic, it has also enabled the artists to move around the sculpture virtually before anything is created by hand. With Jane’s ‘Beyond Infinity’, the graphic design department coupled with the laser printing facilities enabled us to help her create the complex patterns of the final work.

Of course, the final goal is to cast stainless steel as well, but I believe that is still something we are aiming for within the next five years, mainly due to current restraints in building size.

For more information on ‘Intimacies of Scale’ and Gajah Gallery’s other exhibitions, visit gajahgallery.com.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.