Landscape Painting

CATWALK – a pilGrimAge

During my artist residency at L'Observatoire in Singapore, I did a walk called "CATWALK – a pilGrimAge" from L'Observatoire to Bukit Timah Visitor Centre, which is situated in one of Singapore's National Parks.  

This wander made me wonder, why we wear wild prints, and why we drink. And finally inspired me to do a landscape (painting).

Cheers!

 

 

 

Women in Trees

Join the movement!!! #womenintrees 🌳💃🏻🌴💚 inspired by book by Jochen Raib, who discovered this motif, when he collected photos from flea markets - most photos are from the 1920s-1950s, and the question is: what were all these well dressed women doing in trees? The answer might surface, if you try it out yourself. Who knows?

Survival Gear

Easy to spot - but how to distinguish between magic sticks, walking sticks, talking sticks, pointing sticks, tickling sticks, poking sticks, and selfie sticks? 
Well, as part of my residency at L'Observatoire in Singapore, I collected sticks in the nearby forest and made my own collection of survival gear for forest fantasies and other forestic affairs 🌳 
The false arm has followed me from a previous project years ago, always good to have an extra arm.

Strange Strangers

Midsummer night encounters with strange strangers in the Scandinavian forests.
This is a short version of the video shown as part of an installation at Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore.

MacRitchie Me

My journeys into MacRitchie, Singapore's wild forest, became a journey into my own perception of nature - and the deeper into the wild I went, the stranger everything became.
In an attempt to adapt to the forest and the strange strangers I encountered on my way, I designed new clothes, and soon I became a stranger to myself.

In Pursuit of Wildness

Finding wilderness is a challenge these days, but finding wildness is possible anywhere. 
On International Day of Forests 2016 I found wildness in the central part of Singapore at LaSalle College of the Arts setting up my self-made tent called House of Wild Wood Woman. For the day I was immersed in the big, lush tropical forest.
Never stop dreaming :-)

1. 1. 11.

On the first day of the year, the sky is gloriously fresh and spring mists hang in the air. It’s quite special and delightful the way people everywhere have taken particular care over their clothing and makeup, and go about exchanging New Year felicitations.
Somehow I feel these words are mine (as much great art do), yet they are more than 1000 years old, belong to Sei Shoonagon and are originally written in Japanese.
I am reading The Pillow Book and find great inspiration - the apparent random mix of nature descriptions, diary entries, character sketches, lists of awkward things and anecdotes come forward as being very post-post-modern indeed!
My N.Y. resolution 1. 1. 2011 is to make 'a mossy' version of a pillow book - inspired by journeys off the beaten path.
Happy Now!

Recipe for making Yourself a(t) Home

Do you fancy a recipe for making yourself a(t) home!
Well, I don't have the exact recipe for YOU, but I am happy to disclose, how I did.
Last summer when I was reading Anne la Bastille,  I stumbled upon this statement about her tent: .....All my equipment has been tested, retested, simplified, and refined with every camping and backpacking trip....

I knew exactly, what she meant, having participated in numerous outdoor trips myself, but this time my mind turned round and came up with the idea: Why not make a tent that is the opposite of this: impractical, untested, in process and with a high ceiling? More feminie, more spiritual, more me!

I might have been influenced by the 15th century tapestry, from which I have painted a never finished transposition for my dining room.
Nevertheless, this is how I did: First I walked around in circles trying to sense the dimensions of my personal space; then I put in the dimensions in the equations for making an octagonal tent.
From then on everything has been a journey.
I am the happy owner of a homemade home, a House of WildWood-Woman and my own travelling museum and gallery all in ONE.

DIY!!!

Questions & Answers

I recently went to London's East End to see the show Questions and Answers by Marcus Coates at Kate MacGarry.
Marcus Coates is renowned for his often hilarious performances where he is wearing animal skins and appears to go into shamanic trances in an attempt to get answers to questions raised by the audience.
Trying to address everyday questions as well as major political problems this way is a refreshing new (old) approach - and isn't it THERE in the gap between subject and object, matter and spirit, nature and culture etc. that we find THAT?
But is it possible to look through other specs than those we have been wearing for 300 years in the Carthesian worldview with it's neatly hierarchically ordered and distinct dualisms?
Rane Willerslev is addressing the Cartesian legacy in anthropology in the book Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs where he challenges the Western anthropolgical view that tends to see shamanism and animism as "a particular cultural construct, intensely intriguing and interesting perhaps, but without any foundation in reality".
Marcus Coates uses mimicry in his practice i.e. he imitates but without loosing his own identity (he only dresses partly as an animal). But is he an artist acting like he is a shaman, or is he seriously trying to be a shaman? Well, leaving Descartes behind, the question is meaningless. To me he is entering the realm where he is not an artist (or shaman) and yet he is also not not an artist (or shaman).
In conclusion I would like to confess: I am not a tree, but I am also not not a tree.

Going home

I have embarked on a new project this summer. I am making my own Hermitage, House of WildWoodWoman, Recluse Refuge, Museum of Natural Histories or Thoreau Tabernacle. You name it!

I am inspired by Anne la Bastille and Henry Thoreau but contrary to their cabins, mine is mobile. I want to be free to explore Wilderness - the inner as well as the outer. Wish me luck!......

Coming soon to a forest near you.

But first I am heading westward to become a pioneer settler.