A collection of Poon-like works

In a further extension to the acidulous critique offered by the above critique, I offer here a collection of works and objects that share Anthony Poon’s aesthetic.

A lamp

Modern furniture

Architecture

Victor Vasarely's geometric perfection

Anthony Poon's Squatri Purma

A bath towel

A rug

A rug

A stock image

How the digital age will erase Poon from our memory

This is an interesting article that was sent to me from one of this blog's viewers:

Anthony Poon’s works are simply much ado about nothing. His non-representational, self-referential forms are barely anything more than an uninspired artist’s obsession with depicting geometry.

When critique Chen Chong Swee denounced Poon’s works for being meaningless, he stated there was no excuse for a piece of art to be incomprehensible. There are works of art that fall into the category of abstraction, yet carry some form of meaningful interpretation or that sway the emotion of the viewer in some way. Pollock’s abstract expressionist paintings, for instance, envelop viewers in a sprightly Autumn Rhythm or in the swirling mysteries of an Ocean Greyness.

Poon’s works, on the other hand, seem to be mere decorations that carry little room for interpretation. The Wave series could be taken to carry two interpretations, both of which it has failed to bring to the viewer successfully. Most fundamentally, it could be an attempt at representing actual waves. The colour and form of his Waves glaringly suggest otherwise. Even if it was a conceptual representation of the wave’s form, generic sinuous curves do no justice to such a potentially powerful natural form. Second, the obsessive attention to perfecting proportion and making invisible every brush stroke could challenge the traditional notion of a painting as being composed of brush strokes. It might also achieve a level of so-called “verisimilitude” such that the line between painting and actual form is blurred, a la Hyperrealist ideals but applied to meaningless geometry. On this count, the methods used by Poon are rather obsolete and unimpressive. Any student trained in painting could achieve a smooth gradient between any two hues. The advent of digital media makes it all too easy to displace Poon’s methods. This leads us to yet another critique of Poon’s works.

The careful precision of Poon’s works seems to have lost meaning with the growing use of digital tools to create artworks. He seemed to have selected the equivalent of a real-life Gradient Tool in Photoshop and applied it to the canvas. Abstract, clean-looking geometry is ubiquitous in the world of technology. Many will not take a second glance at Poon’s work if it was simply another digital image – it would fit right in amongst the multitude of digital images that could be created with a few mouse clicks. I have taken the liberty to create an expert digital imitation of one of his Waves. It has taken less time to create this masterpiece than to write this sentence.

Taking these forms and applying them to canvas in no way legitimizes adopting them as an art form on in a gallery. If anything, Poon’s work will be quickly forgotten and displaced by more impressive digital media as these media are improved and increasingly used amidst growing computing power worldwide. As computer programs and tablet apps become more visually appealing, their appeal would inevitably exceed favourable reaction to Poon’s works. The creators of these programs have taken months to carefully consider every aspect of composition and design, and are able to execute these visual ideas with impunity and on a large scale. Artists like Anthony Poon, who spend much of their career merely executing generic ideas on geometry, will be edged out eventually.

His artistic process

“Hello! I am an art student, currently studying at Lasalle College of the Arts. While I was doing some research for inspiration for my final-year project, I stumbled across this blog and have been enamoured with your relief paintings ever since. I’m interested to know what your work process encompasses, and how you manage to create the elevation prominent in these relief paintings.

- Susan Green”

Unfortunately, this comment was lost to my father and he is no longer around to answer it. However, for those that are interested, I will be explaining (to the best of my ability) the work process of my father in creating his works.

My father was best known for his 2-dimensional Wave series multihued paintings, which presented a bright wash of colours and transported viewers into a transcendental state of colour euphoria. However, these paintings were not created on a whim of artistic impulsivity, but were diligently and meticulously planned. My father made miniature paintings on which he would test and select the exact colours to use prior to executing the bigger-scaled versions. This resulted in works that appear impeccably executed, with a highly sophisticated finish. Below are two of his sketches, which give an insight to his meticulous process.

 Untitled (Sketch 3), pencil on paper

Sketch for 'inverted Y' painting

Addressing the commenter’s interest in my father’s relief paintings, he accomplished the transition from 2-dimensionality to the 3-dimensional by means of inserting shaped aluminium armature under the canvas that was to be stretched over this support, in order to provide a new dimension. Below are a few photographs which depict this process:

Side view construction of his Wave paintings

Back view of Wave relief painting

Side view of Wave relief painting

W-White on 2P Waves

I was surfing the net just the other day, when i found an interesting commentary on my work written by a student. :

What I like about Poon's work  :

The use of a stretched aluminum wire under Poon's canvas seems to subvert the practice of creating illusionistic depth which is commonly used to fool viewers into thinking that a three dimensional space exists inside the canvas . Poon instead uses the aluminum wire to push out certain parts of the canvas, literally creating a third dimension that exists outside the canvas.  In addition, what makes the work interesting is the symbiotic relationship between both the three dimensionality  of the physical work and two dimensionality of the painting applied on the canvas - If one takes a closer look one would notice that Poon has subtly and very meticulously added "false" shadows by painting  grey areas which seamlessly blend into the canvas ,along the edges of the protruding wire.  This helps to accentuate the voluminous folds in the work which would not have been visually possible considering the limit to which the canvas can only be stretched. The three dimensional appearance of this work  is thus a successful use of both sculpture and painting.

Unlike the previous wave paintings that relied on the use of colour and repetition to create the effect of motion, this work elegantly captures the essence of an undulating motion simply through the use of shadows. The wires that protrude from behind the canvas create the impression of a curvilinear line when light is cast above the work - this guides the eyes and enables it to follow a wave like motion. It is also important to note how the arrangement of the wires help to contribute and create motion. The intentional asymmetry (particularly between the two crests in the centre of the work ) help to create a sense disequilibrium which tricks the eye into seeing a converging motion.   

My father and I

One of the rare photos I have of my late father and I.

We are at home, enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon.