Working for the Soul..

 

…matter is physical exuberance, ennobling contact, virile effort and the joy of growth. It attracts, renews, unites and flowers. By matter we are nourished, lifted up, linked to everything else, invaded by life…it contains the spur or the allurement to be our accomplice towards heightened being…

— Theilhard de Chardin

 I started carving with soap as material as it was something which is available in my immediate surrounding. I also wanted to explore on this "routine" aspect as compared to the sensational emotions felt on the beach. I wanted to create a bridge between the Retreat (escapism) and the Home (domesticality) for they both form part of my reality. There is a balance that is maintained for my well-being. 

For me, the act of carving is a form of art therapy. It is a reductivist/subtractive  method where I get to surrender to the creative process. There is a form of vitality in sculpting: the shaping, the forming, the building and the growing. The shapes that emerge are appealing and soothing. While the hand is in full action, self-awareness is enhanced as it becomes more physical. I am reminded of the words of Vincent Van Gogh here who relates "the art produced by man's hands" to the "working of the soul": 

"Art, although produced by man's hands, is something not created by hands alone, but something which wells up from a deeper source of our soul.. My sympathies in the literary as well as in the artistic are drawn more strongly to those artists in whom I see most the working of the soul."

My approach to my work is entirely organic, in response to both emotion and material. I now choose to think about another period of time as I work on. My objects; my collections belongs to another place. The work, produced in the studio, triggers memories from the past. However, the (man-made) material belong to the home/the studio. It is a product; it has a function. By de-contextualising the soap, it now exists in an artistic form. 

As material, soap is soft and malleable. The shape easily comes out and texture is easily formed. There is a fragility associated with the material that I like and I also like the way this material is to be handled with much care. They are also comforting to the hand.

There is a form of ritual going on that is most appealing: something is being transformed in the act of making. In the process, something grows out and unfolds itself, changing from the initial response. There is yet another ritual to complete the ritualistic/ceremonial circle.

I would like to bring these carvings to the sea with me. I would like to place them into the waves to share them with my place of retreat. I would like to trigger the initial function of the soap which is to disintegrate at the contact with water to see what can happen. As soap is an ephemeral material, the swaying actions of the waves can either wash away its surfaces and carve in new forms or break the fragile structures to re-model the sculptures as with the fragmented shells. The displacement from the home to the place where all this started is like a pilgrimage and in a way it can end up as an offering to my "home"; the place where I belong but also the "home" which is the world; and I would be carrying my sense of the home and my love for it to another country where at the end I would be exhibiting my work at the Gallery. I am quite thrilled by this prospect for as I see this act as a heightened form of sharing...