I had that feeling, upon entering the second hand store, that there was something in there I needed to find. It was a glorious Saturday in March and a little framed print caught my eye, on one of the lower shelves of a tightly packed array, when I went to the trouble to bend down, reach in and pull it out to look, the moment I saw eyes looking back at me I was thrilled and clutched it, then bought it, and came immediately home to hang it up.
Here’s the image from the Michelle Kuen Suet Fung website and her story of creating; Just Hanging Out…
Michelle Kuen Suet Fung 馮捲雪!
“Just Hanging Out” is my most popular series to date.
Sometimes a great series was meticulously researched and carefully planned. Other times, it just happened.
This series just happened.
Late 2008, under the dark sky deep into the wee hours of the evening, I buried myself in the studio, physically tired yet with blade-sharp concentration. I was in that trance where I wanted to stay up all night and create. (No, with no aid of drugs. See point 54.) I grabbed a piece of paper and started drawing.
There! it was done in one sitting.
To be honest, when I finished it, I treated it as one of my many drawings. I never paid much attention to it. I didn’t even like it that much. I didn’t do anything with it until in Jan 2009, I took this drawing (along with other works) to Doctor Vigari Gallery. The drawing was sold within a month and I had constant positive feedback from people.
The central tree is a symbolic tree of life and the various little people or animals/objects “just hanging out” with the tree parallel how we all just hanging out during the span of our lifetime. I use this context to ask some of my endless questions about life, death, love…I chose to take a playful approach rather than a didactic one. I prefer to be provided with a space to medidate rather than told how/what to think. This translate into how I want my viewers to approach my works. The light-hearted imageries reduces the emotional guard of adults. No matter how much one cannot identify with these big-eyed figures, it is rather difficult to be intimidated by them.
In this particular drawing (which was only meant to be a stand-alone drawing in the beginning), I ask questions about life and death. A baby, wrapped in a soft cocoon, is hung from a leaveless tree in a style not unlike on a death rope. The tree is in its withering (or resting) stage, whereas the baby in its cocoon suggests a glorious metamorphosis.
I love playing with contradiction within one image. My mother is in love with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Alas I was into her sister’s Wuthering Heights more. Mom was not pleased that I was into the wild passion as a teen. See point 23) She always quoted “a bundle of contradictions” when I was a girl. I have always found the term befit me well. So there, as I say in my artist statement, none of my artworks is self portrait, but I acknowledge a lot of myself in them.
Please visit the Official website of Michelle Kuen Suet Fung
More promotion of Michelle Kuen Suet Fung, as she has an awesome exhibition to reduce plastic waste and help raise awareness of the danger to nature, with her exhibition called: Plastic, plastic, every where! 天空膠雨
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