I don’t think it will ever stop feeling like this.

Well I reckon it’s about time I begin posting some of my works up here. Of course everything I make is precious to me but this series here is where I “found” mixed media, in particular embroidery. It has, since then, been one of my most favourite mediums to work with (as you will soon see!). It was also where I started working with layers, playing with visibility and hiddenness.

At the point when this particular work was made, I was reading a lot on Sufism. The Sufis believe that the heart is the center of the human microcosm and is where God resides. I was also in the middle of a very complicated, very confusing, very intense relationship. And so I wanted to find solace in something bigger than myself, and also straighten out my emotions. I started using embroidery to follow the arteries and veins of the heart, to symbolise a search for The Answer. Well of course at the end of it, I was nowhere near figuring anything out but was pretty damn happy with what came out of it, so all’s well. In the final presentation, I included a clip of a heart surgery. The stitches I made on the heart seem to me like a process of destruction and repair, and I wanted to show this literally being done.

Images of the heart were from Gray’s Anatomy by Henry Gray, illustrated by Henry Carter, printed on tracing paper and stitched on, done in 2008. This work was shown in Nixon Art Mosh Singapore 2010 sans the heart surgery.

Digital print and embroidery on tracing paper.