Artwork: There is a field, I’ll meet you there

Title: There is a field, I’ll meet you there

Medium: Etching on papers, 6 pieces

Dimensions: 5 X 9 inch 

Year: 2023

“Dreamworlds are the displaced expressions of this world within a world of their own.”

-Walter Benjamin “The Storyteller: Tales Out of Loneliness”

Regarding the etchings composition

The dream animals appear as generic animal groups. In the dreams, their appearances are generally vague.

This series of etchings are interwoven into compositions with two distinct parts consisting of dreams elements and non dream elements. The dream elements are the main characters in the etchings. They are the animals that appeared in the artist dreams. The non dream elements are the backgrounds landscape settings such as the local stream native plants and trees. 

In the etchings, the artist chose native species to represent the animals. All dream animals except the armadillo and the sun bear can be found in the nature landscapes of Singapore. The composition of the etchings of the Malayan Box Turtle is embedded with influences inspired by the mono scenic narrative form of the Bharhut Buddhist medallion sculpture relief from ancient Indian and the drawing technique of etching Four Lined tree frog is embedded with inspiration of drawing techniques developed by Finnish artist Tove Jansson.    

Table: Details of etchings compositions

Etching art works	Dream Space	Living Space	Non Dream Space	Native (animal)
	Dream animal	Living animal	Non Dream Elements	Yes or No
1	Turtle	Malayan Box Turtle	Water Mimosa	Yes
2	Frog	Four Lined tree frog	Mandai Stream, Nutgrass	Yes
3	Armadillo	Three Banded Armadillo	None	No
4	Snake	Wagler’s Pit Vipers	Bodhi Fig Tree (Selegie Road)	Yes
5	Bear	Sun Bear	Sun bear, Indian Fig tree (artist garden)	No
6	Pig	Eurasian wild pig	None	Yes

A woodcut workshop was also held during the exhibition. You can read more about it in this post.

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This series of etchings were exhibited in the group exhibition “Leave nothing but footprints in October 2023.