Artist Statement
I am an interdisciplinary artist attempting to bridge photography with existentialism. As a teenager, I spent six years in a Methodist school in Singapore, and I was eventually driven by the hardship into the arms of the man who declared 'God is dead.' As I stand before the new horizon in this post-Christian era, I learn that life is fundamentally meaningless without God; meaning is no longer what we find but what we create. As my fascination with existentialist literature and philosophy grows stronger, my interest in life on Earth becomes the singularity for my artistic expansion. Through photography, writing, book art, and exhibition, I reconsider our relationship to nature, meaning, time, and consciousness, which are some of our universal contemplation in individual existence.
As I liked to wander in undeveloped jungles at night in Singapore, I often encountered buildings that were contradictory to the meandering surroundings—a lone castle in a nameless forest. Although it reminded me of the beginning of civilisation, as it was the first chapter of our story, it also revealed our awkward position as ‘the rational animals’ among others. Our relationship with nature appeared to be less harmonious than the early Romantic paintings had suggested. I, therefore, started to question our existence in this pile of chaos.
After Symbiotic series, I realised what differentiates humans from other species is our ability to stand against nature. With the same desire to build and make sense of existence, I learnt to create and photograph 3D-models, which resulted in Zero series. However, as I compared the silver gelatin prints with the initial rendering files, I was horrified by the fundamental sameness. I could not help but question the meaning of my complicated darkroom process as well as this circular development. As the creator, I wanted them to be more meaningful than mere aesthetic phenomenons; however, it was questionable whether my romanticised gaze could ever alter the essential neutrality.
It is true that my search in Zero is futile because it does not matter whether I could overcome the ontological meaninglessness; time always erases our achievement. This tragedy often reminds me of my first class in college where I learnt to make plaster. As I poured the powder into water, the liquid slowly turned into solid; when the plaster consolidated itself in my cupped hands, it is like the forever escaping reality suddenly became heartwarmingly graspable. With the same desire to preserve, I fantasized a timeless dimension in Still series.
Needless to say, the plaster broke down as time slipped through my fingers. But as the sunlight broke through the window and cast itself onto the creases of my bedroom wall in the morning, I shifted my focus from the end to the beginning. This turned into Before Water series. With only sunlight and horizon, I imagined how life on Earth began, and that this remained as the first scene we saw every day. As I stood before the horizon and I was ready to sail again, I found myself in the same position as in Symbiotic—a beginning of self-consciousness.
Unfortunately, the line bent into an arc of a giant circle in Sonata in Darkness series. As the sun went down, instead of the hopeful horizon in the morning, the household items in my apartment somehow morphed into illustrations of the existential nightmares that I failed to reconcile in my previous projects. Instead of Nietzsche’s Übermensch who was superior enough to stand at the top of the mountain, I was Camus’ embarrassing Sisyphus who laid at the bottom, having the occasional difficulties in returning to the eternal sine wave on Earth.
In this year of quarantine, my desire to communicate with others became stronger. I began to transform my writing and photography into artist books, such as Photographer as a New Sisyphus, casting new lights on these timeless dilemmas I have mentioned. As I bound these books page by page, intertwining the cotton thread through the spine and weaving the sine curve across the horizon, I finally understand the importance of a relentless fresh start.
Sunny Yeung
1 January 2021