Untitled VI {Hairline Cracks Series}

"Hairline Cracks consists of seven different found plates covered with banal flowery patterns. Some of the imagery on each of these plates has been partly sanded off, after which the same images were meticulously re-drawn through the use of the artist’s hair and superglue. The thin lines of hair are evocative in their fragile beauty, yet materially hold a sense of abjection. It is aesthetically pleasing yet mildly disturbing at the same time.

The plates are displayed in an old-fashioned manner against the wall, reminiscent of grandmother’s house. A sense of history is inherently embedded in the secondhand objects themselves while the nostalgic feel of the plates further produces this sense of history, something that comes from the past. The areas where hair has been used to re-draw the patterns have lost their colour; the lines seem almost insubstantial. This loss of colour and fragility imply a fading memory, a degradation, a memory that will over time be lost.

Yet, the act of re-drawing the images without colour could perhaps be seen as a re-writing of histories or memories. The images of conservative flowery plates are made ‘new’ or ‘different’ through the act of re-drawing the images on the plates. The obsessive and painstaking nature of this manner of drawing implies a difficult and fragile change, but possibly a change for the better."