correcting family-wise error rates
An Eidolon (2018)
50cm x 30cm x 40cm
Mixed media
[hobby wood, acrylic paint, batik cloth, curtain cloth, ribbon, lace embroidery, cord, card stock, gold-painted embellishments, varnish, metallic watercolour, found objects, LED spotlight, yarn, thread, plastic grass, potpourri, lemongrass, porcelain tile]
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For my Master's graduation exhibition, I created a diorama of a miniature wayang kulit (traditional Indonesian shadow puppet theatre) featuring elaborately-carved puppets locked in a scene of internecine battle. The puppets are a syncretic fusion of Chinese and Indonesian, both in artistic style and in narrative character. One is a dragon/naga, greatly revered in Chinese culture. The other puppet represents Nezha, a precocious deity.
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This artwork is intended as a reflection of my personal and professional growth through my psychodynamically-oriented education in art therapy: we are to be psychodynamic art therapists, so I believe that we should constantly reflect on our own families-of-origin, and the people we are today because of the people in our yesterdays. In An Eidolon, I reflect on a generation's unstinting reverence for Chinese cultural beliefs and values.
EIDOLON
eidolon (ειδωλον) /ʌɪˈdəʊlÉ’n/
n. an idealized person or thing; a spectre or phantom.
The word "eidolon", translated from the Greek, means a spectre, ghost, or spirit; it may also mean ‘mental image’, ‘insubstantial appearance’, ‘false image or fallacy’, ‘the image of an idealised person or thing’. The word ‘idol’ is etymologically derived from this. Additionally, Walt Whitman’s anthology of poems “Leaves of Grass” includes the poem Eidolons (1891). The poem recounts the advice of a seer for the poet to reflect in his work the forms and true realities of the world: eidolons. It is a reflection on our incomplete and imperfect representations of reality - much like shadows.
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WAYANG
I chose the wayang art form as it teems with symbolism. The solitary oil lamp (blencong) represents the Sun, bearing light upon the myriad, petty puppets who populate the world, who are unwittingly manipulated by the puppet master (dalang). The banana trunk (gedebog) demarcates Heaven and Earth. The veil (kelir) represents the World. In wayang, art, ritual, entertainment and education are combined to explore the conundrums of life. It renders epic, cosmic-proportioned stories into digestible, miniature worlds. This shrinking itself is an act that shows a certain existentialist perspective towards life. Both the dalang and his viewers reflect on this insignificance and how mysterious forces drive the universe, much like the tenets of psychodynamic theory [i.e. the unconscious drives].
That despite his best efforts, Man does not know himself.
That much of reality is merely eidolons.
※ I detailed the development process in a presentation which can be viewed here.