BETWEEN (The Scent series), 2018

204 x 93 cm

Chinese ink, mineral pigments, with zhihua & printmaking techniques on silk

Property of the artist

This work is part of the artist’s larger interest in elements such as scents,

sounds and touch, that are difficult to depict or represent visually. As a

visual artist who relies on sight as a dominant sense, Cristene first began

to explore the effects of scent on her own perceptions and emotions over

a decade ago. A memory of her mother’s expensive perfume – a secret,

defiant luxury in the impoverishment and austerity of the post-War

period in Singapore – had activated in her a flood of recollections and

images from the past. The idea of a persistent fragrance in the shadows

of the Japanese Occupation was associated with the complex personality

of her mother, whose delicate frame belied a resilient, individual spirit.

This motif of scent continues in 2018 and was submitted in response

to the Biennale theme of Rosengarten with its reference to interstitial

spaces and to the strange time or hours of “in-between-ness” in the

legend of Alpenglow. The Biennale theme also encompassed the history

of war in the Dolomites.

Cristene’s Between alludes to a wafting scent that in turn suggests a

presence that is a quiet force emanating its own scent. The distilled

‘essence of a scent’ does not yield to enveloping shadows but survives and

lingers between spaces.

For this piece, Cristene deployed a combination of printmaking and zhihua

painting – where mineral pigments were directly applied with fingers and

palm rather than with paint brushes. Texture and imprints were created

through impressions from handmade matrices. The translucency of the

silk fabric and subtle colours suggest the behaviour of scents as they stain

and leave traces, adding to the sense of ephemerality and transience.

Cristene Chang Hoei is best known for the ‘hybridity’ of her artistic

expression, combining and re-invigorating conventions from

printmaking, Chinese ink and artisanal modes of creation. A Fine

Art graduate of Middlesex University, London (with training in art

education at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Singapore), Cristene’s

art practice spans over 40 years.

Her interdisciplinary works amplify tactility and textures and explore

the densities and translucencies of material, inks and pigments.

Her ideas and thought are marked by a literary sensibility that is

manifested in her artwork titles and her articulations. Recurrent

motifs in Cristene’s work include the behaviour of memories, the

peculiarities of our experience of Time, and our attachment to places

and terrains. Her works often allude to sensory elements that are

difficult to represent pictorially or visually – such as scent, sound,

touch and mood.

Her printmaking matrices are uniquely handmade, with many

produced to naturally ‘self-terminate’ (i.e.: rendered not re-usable

for multiple runs) sometimes after only a single pull through her

printmaking press. Comprising natural or found elements (ricestalks,

twigs, branches, coir fibre, wires, hessian, etc.), these matrices

are themselves a singular aspect of her practice and have been

written about and published.

Her accolades include the First Prize Ray Fawcett Award, London

(1995); First Prize, Tan Tsze Chor Award [Abstraction] (2003) and

Bronze Award, UOB Painting of the Year (2014). She was a finalist

in Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2009 and in 2017 her work was

shortlisted from over 4000 entries in a selection of 304 artists for

6th Guanlan International Print Biennale 2017 and exhibited at the

China Printmaking Museum. Cristene’s practice has been featured

on television – The Travelling Palette (Mediacorp, 2007) and

Passages: Art Nation (Mediacorp, 2002) and publications including

Women Artists in Singapore (2011) and Printmaking Handbook

(A&C Black, London, 2008).