Tales They Told Me

The final framed size for the painting is 80 cm (H) x 115 cm (W)
(unframed size for the painting 66 cm (H) x 101.6 cm(W))

Based on the brief by Kerong on the general idea of musical DNA being passed down from generation to generation. It led me down the path of research on ancient scrolls and how most world religions and civilizations are based on knowledge passed down orally from generation to generation. There is no right or wrong. Just the way and method that it was passed down. In fact, music was mostly shared orally way back then and still is widely shared this way.

I then went further into incorporating my ongoing obsession with asemic writing. A form of abstract calligraphy that is a wordless open semantic form of writing. It represents a type of language that is universal and lodged deep within our unconscious minds. One of the main inspirations for my art.

Like a wordless dialogue that develops between people that have shared parts of their lives together for a period of time. It is beyond words but somehow it just feels right. And when it doesn’t feel right, you will know it instantly.

With these inspirations, I came up with the idea of a ‘live’ scroll that doesn’t seem to end. Ever-expanding and evolving knowledge vocabulary. An ongoing visual recording of the musical language that you share with like-minded musicians expands your idea further.

If you look at the visual. It looks as though I am frantically trying to pen down and record as many thoughts and ideas as I can in my own written language. For fear that the moment of the arrival of the idea may be lost to time if I delay further. But at the same time, it is open-ended on both ends to depict the expanding and evolving vocabulary.

For the visual execution. In order to develop the best visual representation of the idea. I worked this out with Talens Indian ink and Golden acrylics, iridescent bright gold on Saunders Waterford 356gsm watercolor paper by St.Cuthberts Mill.