Hannah Tan

Light in Some Places, 2016

 

This set of work uses subtle marks and traces to examine how light, a phenomenon of the physical world, interacts with the body to reveal and hide information in perception.

 

In this set of work, I used plant materials like twigs and branches to score the surfaces of papers that were treated with paint pigments and mediums. The plants materials created thin shallow grooves on the papers and at the same time deposited their traces there. The recessed grooves also redirected some of the paint pigments on the papers to move and settle in them, thereby causing some grooves to be more visible than others. The scored marks appeared or disappeared depending on how light was reflected on the surfaces of the papers and the concentration of paint pigments in them.

 

This work reveals differently as viewers look at it from different angles. Even though some scored traces could not be seen, they exist materially on the surfaces still.