“My thoughts are centred on life, which is always blooming and fading. This is a well-known pattern and the law of nature. I believe that the past is connected with the fate of the present. Everything is therefore in a state of becoming or developing again.”
With this artist statement, Ran Hwang has transformed the Third Floor gallery into a magical and luminous large-sized installation made up of a countless number of eco-friendly paper buttons, pins, beads and crystals. Taking a year and a half to complete, each object in this project has been meticulously hammered by hand into the shape of flowers, delicate spider webs and mythical phoenixes.
The repetitive and time-consuming process that is needed to put this installation together is one that the artist relishes. Indeed, she calls it a form of self-meditation.
As further dimension to the piece, moving images of blossoms, phoenixes and snowflakes are transposed onto the Plexiglas panels, appearing and fading away to convey the cycle of time. And because the artwork fills the entire vertical space, the viewer is drawn both towards its intricate detail and overwhelming scale.
Adding to the immersive experience, visitors are able to walk behind the Plexiglas panels where the sharpened, exposed pins are revealed, offering a different perspective to the installation.
As a grand finale at the end of the video, a colourless phoenix undergoes a metamorphosis to become a majestic golden phoenix before disappearing with the blossoms – a symbol of rebirth.
Ran Hwang’s “Becoming Again” is located at Third Floor – Hermès, 541 Orchard Road, Liat Towers, Singapore. Opens daily, 10.30am – 7.30pm. The exhibition closes on 31 January 2015.
