In her latest show, By Hands, artist Yau Bee Ling ruminates on the fast-changing ways we communicate, writes Sarah NH Vogeler.
IT has been a while since we heard from the talented Yau Bee Ling. Her last show in 2013, The Women, was investigations of themes of self, her relentless chase to determine her “place” in the world. It was simply unforgettable.
The Women overflowed with a “miscellany of decisions”, ones made by everyday women in unending movement, a carnival of nameless females juggling motherhood, careers, relationships and the emotional tumult which accompanies. The artist’s depictions expressed wonderfully what Picasso sensed: That painting is about a seizing of power, taking over from nature, and not expecting her to supply you with information and good advice.
Now, Bee Ling gives us By Hands, her in-depth scrutiny of the ways we communicate with one another. Through a fresh synthesis of approaches, she depicts the spiritual aspects of hands via metaphors, utilising not just paints, but incorporating a number of other materials like charcoal, pastels, jute, wood and varnish to further expound the gradual thinning perceptions of “will forces”.
To put it simply, we use our hands to speak, we do it without thinking. And throughout art history, hands have played pivotal roles in conveying meaning within paintings. Leonardo da Vinci’s circa 1483-1508 The Virgin Of The Rocks comes to mind, of the Virgin Mary’s outspread hand placed protectively on the child John The Baptist, while the other lingers tenderly above Jesus. John’s own closed hands suggest a blessing for the baby Jesus, whose own fingers are raised to John’s in reciprocation. The interactions and representation of each member of this divine assemblage is unmistakably communicated through hand-motions.
Another stunning example would be in the “once almost forgotten and now apotheosised” Italian painter Pompeo Girolamo Batoni’s works. His technique flawless, Batoni demonstrated the true meaning of deeply beautiful rhetorical speech of gestures as seen in The Vision Of Saint Philippe Neri, (circa 1733-1734) The Ecstasy Of Saint Catherine Of Siena, (1743) The Blessed Bernardo Tolomei Attending a Victim of the Black Death (1745) and a personal favourite, the loud and proud Colonel William Gordon (1765-6) whose patrician pose is simply stunning.
Bee Ling shares: “The natures of making and visual expression are based on my own perception of surrounding activities, and document/capture its many visual scenes. My thought was then gradually emerged with visual ideas. It excites me within the interwoven ideas and visual images or imaginative process.
“Every art work I have created and expressed did not come with specific messages, but worked as in a series to reveal the meaning and the process of working. By doing the work, the work feeds me with possible implications and significance. It brings forth the diversity, as well as a united sense of feeling and transformation of thought on being. The interpretation of meaning is open ended and personal inward experiences in the soul which makes me who am I. Every artwork created does not end but rather is ‘giving birth’ to a new consciousness for others.”
Born in Kuala Lumpur in 1972, Bee Ling studied painting at the Malaysian Institute Of Art, where she graduated in 1995. Since then, she has exhibited extensively, is recognised for her distinctive layered works and is regarded as one of the most powerful contemporary painters in the country.
Her current exhibition at Wei-Ling Contemporary marks her 18th year as an artist.
Bee Ling’s works have attracted attention overseas and in the past, she has been invited to exhibit her works in Japan, Singapore, Pakistan, China, Hong Kong, Sweden and Bangladesh. Her works were included in the 2nd Fukuoka Triennale in 2002 and were exhibited at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan.
In 2004, her paintings travelled to the Hokkaido Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the Soul of Asia: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Collection exhibition and in 2005, she was awarded the Rimbun Dahan, Malaysian-Australian Artist-in-Residence programme.
Her works have been collected by the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan and Galeri Petronas, Malaysia amongst others.
I’ve always loved the way Bee Ling paints her figures (especially in The Women) — they implore an almost painful need for interconnectedness — and naturally, points to a reproving tale of possible self-destruction. There is a certain pushiness present; Bee Ling paints her characters free but wanting, unselfconscious yet cautious.
By Hands is no less compelling. The artist, through art lessons taught to her son Zachary, relived the joys of working with hands. The experience exhilarates, and contributes much to the works we see. But there’s also an undercurrent of melancholy and sorrow subtly infused within her canvases, due to her sibling’s recent passing.
As our chat comes to an end, Bee Ling concludes: “For me, it’s important to explore one’s own visual language and evolve together with life. But ultimately it is connecting with our spirituality.”
Thoughtfully, she adds: “I believe that as an artist, the only mission is to continue to create and question the reality through hand activities. Touch is the first human primary sense that pushes towards the formation of ‘I’. By Hands are introspective renderings and relates to my own journey of spirituality.”
These stories, which she tells in By Hands are not by any means finished; they’re open-ended, and serve as “therapeutic dialogue” in the hunt of a stronger link with her maker.
From maverick genius American poet William Carlos Williams, his Love Song:
I lie here thinking of you:
the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branched that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world
you far off there, under
the wine-red selvage of the west!
