In conversation with Mother Nature

This is a new abstract piece that I have created. It is untitled and not in my Exhibition.

In conversation with Mother Nature

We used to be very close to Nature, living off Nature and walking with Nature. Those were the days when people were living on landed properties, be they attap houses, zinc roof wooden huts or simply some mixed mesh of structure to provide shelter, and spent the days in the field, in the sea, farming for a living. The animals, pigs, goats, fowls, cats and dogs lived in close proximity with human beans, sharing the same common space.

In a highly urbanised lifestyle, it is not surprising that many children today did not know what a chicken or duck looks like. Their lives circulate from one concrete building to the next and revolve around modern gadgetry. The only chicken or animal they know are in small pieces on the dinner table. The closest they get to Nature is likely to be a walk in the rain.

I have been in conversation with Nature daily, in a way, through my art. My 7000 pieces of raw images of simply water taken with my camera will keep me busy for years trying to figure out what Nature has imprinted in them. Daily I will work on a few pieces, reviewing and manipulating them for an insight into the thoughts of Nature. Every frame of digital image that looks innocently bland and boring contains a hidden image or message, or many images and messages that are waiting to reveal themselves. Every picture or photopainting that surfaced is the end result of hours of negotiating with Mother Nature, attempting to understand what Mother Nature wants to show to the human world.

I spend many hours daily working with Mother Nature and talking to her, through her works that are deceptively concealed in the unassuming form of reflection and refraction in a pool of water. Sometimes I wonder if it is real, that Mother Nature could be behind all the photopaintings that came forth like a magician and his doves or pulling a rabbit from a hat. Sometimes I wonder if what I finally put into print is the ultimate image that Nature wanted. Sometimes I wonder if there is a message, a hidden message of some kind that Nature wanted to tell us.

Everytime I attempt to look at another perspective, a totally new concept and picture could appear that is entirely different in nature from my earlier interpretation. It is like trying to discover a mystery, to understand Mother Nature through her paintings. Through my photopaintings, Mother Nature is like being there with me, occasionally tipping me off with a little exciting shades and shapes that would lead to more fascinating ways of looking at something so common and unemotional, a reflection or refraction of nothing but light in water. This is going to be a long conversation with Mother Nature and is like an unending journey, as I have only taken my first step, a tip toe, into this wonderland of paintings out of thin air, or simply water.

Painting with your camera

The painters are some of the most talented artists around. They train hard, work hard and acquire great skills in wielding a very primitive instrument developed thousands of years ago and still in its original form, the brush, to create and paint great works of arts and masterpieces. A good piece of brush could be had for a few dollars.

What the painters can do the photographers can’t despite the highly expensive and sophisticated precision instruments in their hands. The camera is not only a piece of fine engineering tool but also a computer added in. The best could fetch several tens of thousands of dollars. Any decent piece of camera of professional grade would cost several thousand dollars.

Other than in capturing great shots that are newsworthy, not many photographers are able to create photos that could come near to a masterpiece of an artist/painter. Are the photographers ready to accept the limitations of their expensive tool and resign to the fate that photography is only photography and still found wanting when compare to what a cheap piece of ancient primitive brush can do?

This is about to change. The camera can paint. There are still many limitations that the camera cannot take the photographers to the world of paintings. But with a new technique that I have developed, the world of paintings is beckoning. Using the technique called The Art of RAR, short for Reflection and Refraction, I am able to create paintings using the camera. My experiment into this realm of photopainting is still in its nascent stage, but the potential of painting with the camera is only limited to the imagination and creativity of a photopainter. 

The kind of paintings that could be created from The Art of RAR technique could vary from realism to abstract art with ease, using only natural light and the natural environment. More creations are waiting to be discovered in a control environment with the right set ups and accessory equipment. Photography is not going to be the same again. Photographers need not be limited by what they were used to be doing with their cameras and could venture into many unknown frontiers of artistry. Technology has given the photographer and their cameras room for more creativity and innovation and experimentation.

The Art of RAR is only a small step forward.

The Art of RAR Exhibition

The most compelling story of a new photopainting technique developed by a Singaporean is waiting to get some notice from the local art scene and the critics. I am still promoting this new art form/technique locally and if I fail to get any support or notice, then I would have to go out of this little island to seek the attention of the world. While our local critics and reporters are busily covering the works of foreign talents, incidentally my work was first featured by a Malaysian lifestyle magazine, the Essenze a couple of months ago.

The most remarkable feature of this technique is that I could create many pieces of artwork, on paper or canvas, just by pointing my camera to a pond of the water. With proper set up, I could create many never seen before paintings and concepts that no human artiste could think of.

My work is a collaboration with Mother Nature with the latter doing the conceptualisation and main features of a painting and I doing the finishing touches. These unique and revolutionary paintings are now on show at NUSS Guild House at Kent Ridge till 21 Dec 12. More than 30 pieces of my work are being exhibited and all are welcome.

Admission is Free.