SHIH YUN YEO
"Diary"
16mm Handpainted film
 

08.05. - 28.06.2009

Curated by Malin Barth

Time is a mystery that confounds yet  intrigues me. Time in its familiar increments of seconds, minutes, hours, days and years; serves a utilitarian function- a common unit that helps the world operate in a systematic way. People equate time with money and perpetually rush so that no time is wasted. Computers are rendered obsolete in a wink and technology companies are trying to build the fastest chips so that we can increase the processing speed by  nanoseconds. So what is the world becoming? Time has not changed, one second in past milieus is still one second now. However, 24 hours day is no longer enough in the 21st century; people complain “ I have no time” all the time.

Time is fleeting and every moment is temporal and unique. I desire to capture the ephemeral quality of things around me using the most raw and direct ways. I seek to capture that which cannot be captured. My art tracks, documents, questions, investigates, challenges and  'freezes' time. My goal as an artist is to do this with the time I have left on this earth.

The series of works 'log:one03'is a personal diary recorded from 2001 to 2003 across cities of San Francisco and Singapore. I explored the documentation of time through mark-making using Chinese ink on sumi paper scrolls, 16mm film and direct on walls.  Certain rules govern my works, for example, I will paint a section of the sumi paper scroll everyday in my studio and record the date and time.

I experiment with different mediums and use non-traditional tools. In using roller-blades to capture marks on paper, the start of the work is when the first mark is made and the end is when no more ink can be transfered to the paper. The work thus captures the moment and cannot be repeated.

Statement

Every day from April 4 to 15, 2009, while Yeo Shih Yun was in Bergen, Norway, she hand-painted a section of a 16mm film with Chinese ink and rubber-stamped the date on it. The resulting artwork is a film in its rawest form without any digital enhancements.

What happens when time is compressed? In this film, the two weeks of time spent on the painting is collapsed into a mere three minutes. In doing so, this work dilates real time, thus rendering one’s sense of action in time disjointed.

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