Wearing The Horizontal I

2020 - Barkcloth from the mulberry tree (created by Mufid), fabric, metal

photography: Mizuma Gallery, Singapore

With the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started to make drawings and paintings on how we all carry the notion of mortality within us. I was inspired by objects of an ephemeral or finite nature, like the ‘Lamak’ – beautiful woven and stitched panels, made from palm leaves that hang in front of shrines in Bali, which fade after only one day.

The existence of fragile works remains in their concepts, stories, contexts and imaginations.

Confronted with our own fragile existence, we are forced to contemplate our core values that forge our notion of life in relation to death, time (present, past, future) and nature.

I interpreted these ideas in creating horizontal dresses. This work ‘Wearing the Horizontal’ depicts a dress that is virtually impossible to put it on, as it is horizontal and not wearable yet. Through the horizontal dress we get a glimpse of what lies ahead of us.