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| an interview with jimmy ong d a n a l a m |
| DL: |
Can I ask you to talk about what the latest painting are about and what has gender got
to do with them? And how has the issue of ancestors/ancestry been uncovered or resolved
in the current exhibition? |
| JO: |
The new works come about over a period between 2003 and 2005. During that time,
my brother was expecting a child after a miscarriage, my biological mother whom I have not
seen for thirty years wanted to see me, and my father passed away. I had to come back to
Singapore many times over three years as the gallery that represented me suddenly closed.
In the course of which I was to visit some old personal ghosts and had the opportunity to
witness the development of the gay movement in Singapore in fast-forward; spanning from
the year of the acceptance of gay civil servants to the ban of Nation parties. All this flux
around me sparked off the artworks.
My new niece caused me to reflect about my ancestors again, and it seemed a
prophesy by a family elder had come true, that my grandfather would be blessed with only a
female child. I felt better about being a gay grandson...but at the same time wondered what
it would be like to have my own child as a gay man. M+ Child and Number One Son.
My biological mother was hysterical when I saw her again. I decided for us to part
for good but came away with incredible emotional baggage hanging off my navel like an
umbilical cord. I was appalled that I was looking at an aged female version of me... and she
too is a potential ancestor.
My father’s funeral was a reunion party of the ghosts of my ancestors. Even though I
hardly knew him, I regretted not being able to come out to him weeks before he died. The
Taoist funerals also made me wonder what a gay ancestor would look like, which gave rise to
Heart Sons and Heart Daughters.
Visiting old haunts in Singapore convinced me that I had missed the gay internet
culture... I wanted badly to make a happy memorial to the cruising lifestyle that I knew: Parting at Fort Road and Sea Song were the results.
Yu Sisters Cross the Mountain is a tribute to my aunts and grandmother: a household
of proud accomplished women in spite of my grandfather’s curse of having no grandson...
Kong Thung & Guni is a parody of the gay person and the authorities in Singapore.A pas-de deux of lovers who almost touch and part... Kong Thung & Guni is the Hokkien homonym of the last line of the nation’s civic pledge in Mandarin Chinese... it literally means rock sugar and milk in Hokkien... erh, don’t they look like inter-racial lovers? |
| DL: |
The current works seems to have a much lighter touch. The first thing I noticed about
them is the absence of the kind of broody conflict and tension of earlier works. I am tempted
to read this as a sign of resolution of the issues with your ancestors. Can we discuss the
nature of this ‘resolution’ if you agree it is there? |
| JO: |
It isn’t what preoccupied me all the time, but looking at some of the artworks
transports me to the origins of past events, and bits and pieces of unresolved arguments…
“He said, she said...” I think that’s why I do not collect my own work. At the same time,
the resulting artwork is always far from the seed idea, and less disruptive without the
‘storylines’. I think that is the resolution the artwork provided for me, a process that allowed
me to step back, delete hurtful dialogues, have complete autonomy of what happens in the
picture plane, and at the end, sort of brush my hands and say, “Done!”
Not all the artworks stem from seed ideas, but one drawing can give form to the
next one and so on. This body of works can also be seen as a sequel to those in earlier
exhibitions namely Lovers & Ancestors, and Alter Altar.
In a sense I think that is probably why these new works are more ‘resolved’ or lighter;
that I have become better with practice? Or that I have simply grown older, less likely to be
caught in family tension, and more likely to see what happened as funny, and not brood. I
think moving away must have lent a little objectivity...
Another possibility for a sense of resolution in the new series is these new works tend
to be about projections/questions, rather than chronicles of the past: for example, imagining
what being a parent would be like; what if ancestors were not present; what if gay people
cruising on the beach weren’t persecuted but protected and worshipped like legendary
heroes; and women were the principal object of ancestor-worship; and the authorities were
really loving fathers to their (gay) subjects, with open arms and hearts?
I have also been thinking about my ‘exile’ from one country to find a home elsewhere.
And as much as my earlier works had been an apology to my family about why I left, I
sometimes wondered if I were doing the same for Singapore. What is this queer sense
of expulsion from one’s hometown that niggles? Especially whenever I read of news or
complaints of gay life in Singapore from my friends... I cannot help wanting to put in my 2 cents worth... though being so far removed from the scene, I can only attempt long-distance
wishes. The last drawing in the exhibition Alter Altar was titled Wo-Man without Country: a
pathetic picture of an acrobatic man standing on one finger on a ground that is dissolving...
a lament about what it is like to be disenfranchised...
In the Confucian chain of son-father-family-village-country-emperor, it isn’t far-fetched
to pass the resentment to the ruling party, no? I have come this far and am attached to
another gay man for a decade and I have found out how ordinary it is in a domestic sense,
but I still can’t bring my grandmother to come live with us to share all these joys of home
and family. Likewise, a town that rounds up its gay sons and scares them into hiding is going
to miss all the joys of another side of a more lively, colourful and gracious way of life. |
| DL: |
‘Detachment’. How has time spent on reading Buddhist writing worked on the
ancestor/ancestry issue? When did you begin these readings and is there any co-relation with
any particular set of work? |
| JO: |
I started reading Buddhist books during a lengthy stay in Sri Lanka in 1999. I also read
an article about ancestor-worship by Vietnamese monk Thich Naht Hanh that moved me.
Thich embraced ancestor-worship as part of Buddhist practice, and the idea of nursing the
hungry ghost within oneself.
After Sept 11, I made an installation piece in New York inspired by the Buddhist ritual
of Ullambana, extending compassion to Hungry Ghosts. At my father’s funeral, I was also
intrigued to learn that people without descendants remain as hungry ghosts, meaning every
single deceased gay man and woman?!
I also subscribe to the idea of how through multitudes of reincarnations, everyone
has been our mother or father at some point. This view is probably most evident in Birthing
Ancestor and Ancestor Breeder, but perhaps also in every piece. |
| DL: |
Seems to me the ancestor/ancestry issue (because of its recurrence in your works
both in titles and visuals) has been the main driver for your oeuvre, since the year you
began. How many months/years of thinking (without doing anything) or thinking on paper
(sketching, drawing) go into each show? |
| JO: |
The events that had happened to me in the last three years were a constant reminder
about issues relating to ancestors/ ancestry. Also the seventh month Ullambana season every
year is very much part of my psyche. Thus it was not difficult to pick up at various points
and execute a drawing based on an image I had not looked at for a while... I do not sit and
think about the issue, indeed the theme title for the exhibition came about while drawing
Parting at Fort Road. I wanted to make series honouring gay ancestors…
I would do a small sketch then charge at the larger paper, making changes as I went
along. The thinking part happened in small doses during long interims, when the unfinished
works would stay on the wall, sometimes for up to three months. A few of the drawings
have earlier versions, false starts, which have been either destroyed or folded for later
viewing. The whole process wasn’t methodical or planned out, it just happened. |
| DL: |
This is an irritating question: with the current sense of ‘resolution’ where do you see
yourself going from here? I’m thinking (and please forgive me for this) it may be that you
have exhausted the subject — at least emotionally — and objectivity. Distance, as you call
it, may be a double-edged sword for your works. Because it is not coursing in your blood
anymore, future attempts to revisit or to ‘portray’ or ‘extrapolate’ may be read as whimsical
or facetious. These are some of my earliest thoughts looking at the current works for the first
time. I seem to detect a vague sense of irony in the drawings but will have to look at them
again to decipher. |
| JO: |
I don’t know where it will go from here, I will probably move on to do smaller works
of less personal subject matter; or try oil painting again. I hope to not revisit old obsessions,
unless they develop new angles. Also ‘resolution’ is relative here, it may be a perceptual
position for you to validate the drawings, but for the artist each work is a ‘resolution’
leading to the next drawing... so it is technically unlimited, unless I get into a block. For
example, I was not able to do much artwork during the year just before the previous gallery I
worked with in Singapore closed, but I think that block has more to do with ego and money...
objectivity comes with the finished work, also as perceived by the viewer... all artwork still
began with a subjective initiative... I think one can still experience emotions without getting
emotional... Perhaps what you are getting at is a fear of impotence in future output?... Isn’t
the antidote a sense of inquisitiveness and openness? |
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