Title: Exhibition ' SENSATION IN BETWEEN' Review
Author: Michael Freeman
At a time when the division between indoors and outdoors is sharpening, and movement between sometimes proscribed, this show questions our relationship between the interior space we inhabit and the world outside. It suggests a soft-edged borderland that transitions between the two, defined largely by our sensory response. This is as much a space of the mind as of walls and windows. In these works from three photographers, Baud Postma, Michael Freeman, Qingyang Chen, Yilin Shi, Jayden Tang from inside we imagine outside, often with a sense of wistful uncertainty. Nothing is definite, but then much is possible.
This liminal space — physical, visual, imaginative and meditative — is defined by light and shadow. Or rather, we create the shadow by enclosing and shielding ourselves from the all-surrounding light. The shadows belong to us, while the light from outside leaks in. These are not the shadows of chiaroscuro, creating volume by controlling the strong interplay between light and shade, but instead uncertain, mysterious, even melancholy.
Baud Postma’s recent solo show ‘In Praise of Shadows’, was named for the seminal 1933 essay by the Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki, writing about the shadow (in’ei) culture of Japanese interior spaces, epitomised in the chashitsu and washitsu tatami rooms that celebrate sukiya (earthen, rough-hewn) style. Postma explores the power and obscurity of shadow, while Michael Freeman treats actual Japanese sukiya spaces for his book Meditative Spaces. Qingyang Chen taken together, she shoots entirely in her room, which is impressive given the relatively small space and that her subject is gernerally herself. Her images provided a new way to repond to the image as a tactile experience experience and enjoy what we see and how we feel, all three offer the possibility of inhabiting a shifting and floating space in between interior and exterior, shade and light.
Tactile sensation plays and important rôle, too, in how we inhabit our interior spaces. The encouragement to touch affirms our presence in this space and this moment. Designer Desmond Dim, ceramics artist Bea Galley, Monica Tong , Yau Tong, and Fuqi Zhang offer haptic works that lie between furniture, object, and sculpture. The sinuous lines of such pieces are taken further by photographer, Andrew Vowles to compare with the body.
