Showing the subtlety of life's multiple layers

I Wayan Juniartha ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Denpasar   |  Thu, 05/14/2009 2:16 PM  |  Surfing Bali

Courtesy of Gaya

Artist Hillary Kane defines "Sanctum Shifting", the theme of her exhibition currently at Gaya Art Space, as the simultaneous choreography of creation and destruction.

It is a fa*ade of paint or clay cracking, warping, revealing the tender under-layer posing as something stalwart and solid, before crumbling under pressure from within or mere graffiti from without.

"The Sanctum is at once my own quiet, sacred space of inner monologue and reflection on identity - who I am, where I come from, how I define myself, how I am perceived, defined, confined by the world, where my place is, nomad of no place, self-asylum, ever-moving.," she once wrote. "And then, sanctum as the sacred spaces of this world, places of calm and peacefulness shifting with the ever-growing fervent tides of political exasperation, tension, imminent disaster."

This statement clearly captures the life-long aspiration of an artist - or rather of a human being - to find that meaningful connection that ties her personal existence to her universal self. To realize the interdependent relationship between a person and the universe, to find one woman's relevance in a world beset by grief and suffering, is a lonely endeavor taken by only a few and completed by even fewer.

Fortunately, Hillary Kane is not a fatally romantic artist who embarks on this endeavor with nothing but dreamy, na*ve eyes that comprehend everything and all reality as essentially beautiful in nature. Her eyes are sharp and her intellect is even sharper in revealing the profound truth that the universe, reality and human beings are constructed from layers upon layers of distinctive phenomena and experiences.

The key word here is "fa*ade", a word often employed by Kane, a word that signifies the presence of an outward veneer that hides unlimited under layers and equally unlimited meanings and interpretations.

She has said of her work that she is "interested in subtlety - in the luminosity of a hundred delicate hues that come to pronounce one color only when taken in all together - of a surface built up slowly of many layers, textures and considerations - in an idea that blends observation and intention with spontaneity and intuition."

The two-way dialogue between the audience and the works - hence the artist - is an important objective that Kane strives to achieve. She has said that the content of her works has more to do with the interface between the viewer and the object and less to do with the subject matter, medium or scale as separate, independent aspects. She explores the possibility of that dialogue, the physical interaction between the viewer and the works, in her piece Please Remove Shoes before Entering, an interactive installation, which, in her words, is "designed to incite the participation of the audience by way of physical traces: the literal footprint we leave on others' lives."

It is ".a totem of observation: When what isn't suppose to happen happens, for example, shoes off, in your best party dress, walking though the mud, carrying on with your pseudo-intellectual banter about the meaning of art while sipping some over-priced cabernet. Hopefully it works," she said of the installation.

During the exhibition's opening night, the viewers were invited to step upon and walk along the narrow installation, leaving their footprints and turning the piece into a collective work.

The exhibition also features Kane's ceramic pieces and paintings, which incorporate fired and unfired clay elements. The majority of these ceramic pieces were fired in a single-chamber Japanese-style wood kiln called an anagama. These kilns are built partially buried in a hillside and have the appearance of a long tunnel. They range in size, as well as period of firing (one is 25 feet long and is fired for seven consecutive days). Wood is the single and only fuel used to attain a temperature close to 2400 degrees throughout.

The wood acts, however, not only as the source of temperature, but also as the essential decorative element, as most of the ware is fired without any glaze whatsoever. Throughout the firing, tiny particles of wood ash float through the kiln as if on a river of flame. These particles settle thinly or densely upon the ware, depending upon the placement of a piece, and create a patina that ranges enormously in color, texture, and sheen.

Hillary Kane confesses that the aesthetic she searches for in oils is precisely the same as the one she appreciates in the surfaces of ceramic vessels fired for days on end in a kiln fueled solely by wood.

"I have realized this only lately, and now I watch, as if from a distance, the quiet, intense dialogue constantly unfurling between my paintings and my ceramic work."

For an artist who has journeyed far and wide, and who learned the processes of creating objects of art employed by indigenous communities and revered artists in Africa, China, Europe and Central America, Kane is a surprisingly humble and down-to-earth individual. Such humility is best reflected by her uncomplicated answer - effortlessly given without any attempt to present an aloof, philosophically laden notion - to the perennial question: "Why."

"Why do I make it? Because there seems to be no escaping from it. It continues to surface and draw me in," she says. "Because it is the only thing that makes me feel entirely directed in life - something that guides me continually, a way in which I can bare or bear myself."

Sanctum Shifting

By Hillary Kane
Until June 9, 2009
Gaya Art Space
Jalan Raya Sayan
Ubud, Bali
Tel: (0361) 979252
www.gayafusion.com

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