Artist Marvin Chan continues to
fly high from his back to back solo shows
in Singapore and Malaysia
Tell us about your two recent shows in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
In my head, the two shows were different parts to the same body of works, where the Singapore show depicted an external view into what’s portrayed at the KL show.
I was interested to arrange the shows in that way with the hopes that they get read that way, where the show in Singapore describes society as feminist and is being mistreated. In the KL show, it’s about how children may be impacted and manipulated, that they are permanently distorted.
The Singapore show was called Tempting frailty; Invisible Lives, in which I pose allegories about how far we as a body of people are pushed towards destruction. I also wanted to paint the images to feel like raw meat, abused and misplaced.
What’s in store for 2017?
I will need to continue working, to find out, but, I think it’s going to be quite exciting.
Favourite Christmas song?
My favourite Christmas song is Mariah Carey’s version of All I Want For Christmas. It frames a lovely picture of our almost ectopic time, pregnant, but, dire. It’s absolutely wonderful to feel so much hope and optimism. The song also makes me wonder if we’re ever in control of our lives, whether we’re significant enough for God and if there is a God or just Stephen Hawking.
Good thing is, we still have Mariah Carey!
What do you love about life, and what do you detest?
Life is everything. It’s everything I ever hoped for, rolled in, with everything that I ever dreaded. It’s daunting, it’s wonderful, treacherous, sublime and most of all, my chief arbitrator. To love life is a long shot, to hate life, is betrayal; nonetheless I think it’s mostly cathartic.
I think life is a space, which I choose to fill with stuff I like, but, a lot of stuff I don’t necessarily (like) also falls into this space. Over time, I learn to grow with this stuff, or try to deal with it. The point is, this space called life, will never be, because it can only become.
What’s your average day like?
It starts off at 6.30am when Max and Momo drag me out for a walk and some grooming, which takes about an hour. Then I sort out breakfast and get ready for the studio. It’s usually not eventful until I turn on the radio and hit the highway. Then I slowly seep back into the sludge, feeling everything grit and stone, chipped and suffocated. Reality as it were, I left it at the studio; my home is a bubble isolated, and far away. Luckily there’s WiFi. I guess we’re never really connected, nor are we ever disconnected. It’s what we choose to breathe in. Sometimes, we don’t get to choose.
I pick up my brush, look at my colours and find faults in my painting, over and again, it never looks as good as it did yesterday, or tomorrow. Break the image, break the moment, enlarge it; breaking the image has become an obsession, I have been observing life, observing the image, reality and me.
But, how do you unravel life?
The closest avenue is to unravel myself, dismantle, deconstruct, re- design and re- think. I usually end up exhausted, but, each day, I feel I am closer to what I’m looking for, only to find it gone the next day. By the end of each day, I step out from a melancholia soup and rinse myself with hope and optimism. Drama, it makes the mundane more palatable.
Finish this sentence: Nudity is...
Nudity is a perspective without all the stuff people deem necessary, or correctness. It’s elementary, and I think it’s good that we remember the elements which make us. The clothes that makes the man, should be “the people who make the man”, we are nude, nothing without a counterpart. Only a space, we shout into, in our heads. We are a body of society, culture is our garment.
To be nude, is to be honest, embracing and to be vulnerable. To see beyond cultural context, to see the nude helps us appreciate all living things. So, I think we humans are so full of themselves when we talk about how we have the highest faculty to think, make theories and speculate.
What other types of jobs have you had?
I was a window dresser, errand boy, illustrator who cannot draw at the beginning, I still kind of am. I was in advertising when I realised that I’m too much of a loner to do that. Logically, I picked a loner job. I am lucky that this job fits me.
What makes you interesting?
I am regular, very regular, until we have something to drink. I think the people around me make me interesting. Without them, I am just a space.
What was the last art show which bowled you over?
A show by David Hockney, in the UK. I feel the portraits are an absolute wonderment to memory and being, which he captured so vividly and most of all, is to have carried out his evolution throughout his lifetime. I don’t think we need to always say something. I mean, I am a painter who make stuff.
What is the most indispensable item in your studio?
My lighter and cigarette. Everything else, I can hack it.
If you could pick a name other than Marvin, what would it be?
It would be Chan Yew Soon, my given name. I wouldn’t have added anything else even if I had read Foucault, Calvino and Kierkegaard in kindergarten.
