Paintings
of god 神画
What
is 神画 or paintings of god? The
Secrets of Mother Nature Exhibition now at NUSS Guild House at Kent Ridge(22 Oct – 21 Dec) is about
a new photopainting art form. I have
developed this technique after many years of experimentation. It is called the
Art of RAR or Reflection and Refraction. It involves the taking of invisible
images in the water and turning them into paintings.
Such
paintings have never been done or seen before. It is about a photograph but not
a photograph, a painting but not a painting, an original but not. It is not
computer graphic art or animation. It is a hybrid of a photograph and a
painting created not by a human artist but by Mother Nature, or god in a
liberal sense. It is painted by a human artist but it is not. Let me explain
this new art form before I confuse everyone.
Why
is it a photograph but not a photograph?
A
photograph is the product of an image taken by a camera of an object. There is
a direct object image relationship. In this art form an object is photographed
using the camera. But the image captured is not that of the object. The object
is simply water in a pond and nothing else. The image can be anything, looking
anything other than water. The image is inherent in the water but is not
visible to the naked eye and needed some processing to reveal what it really
is, and definitely not the water that it originally appeared when being
photographed.
It
is a painting but not a painting
A
conventional painting is normally painted by an artist onto paper or canvas
with ink, pigment, water colour, oil, crayon etc. The painting in this case is
printed by a printer and can be pigment, ink or oil. It has some similarities
with a conventional painting in the sense that it came from an artist’s idea or
thought. The difference is that this idea or concept comes from the thought of
Mother Nature and can only be captured by a camera before being translated into
a visible form.
It
is the original but not the original.
The
real original of a painting created by this method is invisible, is fluid and
is in the water, and vanishes the moment it is photographed and would never be
seen again. This original concept exists in a different plane, like a human
thought. Thus the painting in print form can be called the original as it is
the only available arising from the first thought in the water.
It
is not computer graphic art or animation
The
painting comes from a digital image of a camera. It only goes through some processing
that are similar to darkroom processes, eg brightness, contrast, colour,
sharpness, intensity, brilliance etc. There may be some touching up of spots or
removal of minor blemishes. No major alteration of the image is done. The
authenticity of the digital image is preserved and can be easily returned to the
original form with the hitting of the reset button.
It
is painted by a human artist but it is not
The
conceptualizing of the painting is done by Mother Nature. Everything is already
there and the contribution of the human artist, the photopainter, is to assist
in bringing out the details of the painting that are otherwise invisible to the
naked eye. The photopainter, the human artist, can only do what is already
present in the original image and does not introduce new or additional elements
into the paintings. As the possibilities of each image are quite varied, the
photopainter could interpret it in many ways and there is no certainty that the
image in print is exactly what Mother Nature intended. This is the part played
by the human photopainter, introducing some subjectivity into the final form.
In
summary, every painting created by this technique is conceived and designed by
god or Mother Nature, photographed and fine tuned by a photopainter. It is a
photograph turned into a painting with Nature doing the bulk of the creative
part of the work. The photopainter just collaborates with Mother Nature and the
final work is the effort of both parties with Mother Nature playing the bigger
role.
This
art form or technique is intrinsically a Singaporean creation.
Chua
Chin Leng - Photopainter
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