JIREH KOH
Artist & Musician
Leela Series
Oil on Canvas
2016-2018
As Above, so as Below.
Leela (Sanskrit: लीला, IAST līlā)
Loosely translated as 'divine play', the concept of Leela is common to both non-dualist and dualist philosophical schools of Indian philosophy, but has a markedly different significance in each. Within non-dualism, Lila is a way of describing all reality, including the cosmos, as the outcome of creative play by the divine absolute (Brahman).
Taking the notion of 'Leela' as a point of departure, this series of paintings depicts abstract organic shapes with an uncanny resemblance to biological cells dancing across the canvas. Jireh's playful approach towards (the making of) this art work is played out on both conceptual and methodological fronts.
On a conceptual front, Leela brings Hindu mythology into a productive conversation with conceptualisations of vibrant matter in Western social theory. Concomitantly, Leela, as a meditation on pain(t), crystallises the artist's on-going attempts at defying a Western Cartesian dualism. On a methodological front, Jireh adopted a playfully experimental mode of painting. Such an experimental modality underscores the vibrant materiality of paint, in which paint is not entirely subservient to the dictates of the artist, neither is it reducible to creating a legible signifier of something. Taken together, Leela calls for a re-chantment of our everyday (corpo)realities in an age where we tend to be alienated from ourselves (including our bodies/emotions) and others.
Painting Detail
Leela Series: FluiD (2018)
The Leela Series was also featured in a collaborative artwork between the choreographer Dr Peter Gn and musician Marvin Wong, an intersection between Visual Arts, Live Experimental Music, and Dance.
In the presence of the traces of dynamic application of paint, as well as the organic and fluid textures and motifs in the paintings, the dancers responded to the artwork and the music through their bodies and movement in this hour-long durational performance piece.
This work was presented in the Esplanade Library.
This series of work is also part of a broader strand of Jireh's explorations into vibrant materiality and ephemerality, in which he creates 'living paintings/art', resisting the underlying desire in painting (and art objects) to eternalise a moment/idea in time, defying archival conventions of permanence.
Due to the nature of the medium and methods of application, collectors are reminded that the paintings live and breathe long after completion, transforming slowly through the course of time.