Tan Swie Hian: Renaissance man (Singapore)
Biodata
| Born: | 5 May 1943, Indonesia |
| Education: | Department of modern Languages and Literature, Nanyang University, Singapore |
| Family: | Married, two children |
In an age of specialists Tan Swie Hian is a Renaissance man. The
prize-winning philosopher-artist impresses through a versatile range of work
that includes painting, sculpture, calligraphy, printmaking, and writings of
different genre.
He is the author of poetry, essays, stories, criticism, and translation and the
editor of literary and Buddhist publications.
He has exhibited worldwide and participated in group shows and designed
costumes, masks and stage for performances. At one point in time, he was
also a lecturer in esthetics at an art college. His work has earned him
international recognition and numerous awards.
Who is Tan Swie Hian
Born in Indonesia in 1943, Tan came to live in Singapore as early as 1946.
He studied modern languages at Nanyang University of Singapore, including
English and French. He also speaks Chinese and Malay.
After graduating in 1968 he started his career as the Press Secretary at the
French Embassy. After 24 years in the position he gave it up to devote all
his time to art.
As the second generation of the Chinese family that settled in Southeast Asia,
Tan sees himself as a descendant of the Chinese cultural tradition.
But he would not be contained. His fascination with civilizations has led him
to explore the cultures of India, Southeast Asia and the Western World. He is
attracted to both the new and the old, the East and the West.
‘I am trying to combine the spirit of ancient Chinese philosophy, the Indian
philosophy, particularly Buddhism, and the feelings and the thought of a
Chinese Singaporean.’
‘It is from an Eastern perspective that I try to absorb extensively all aspects
of the human experience.’
Spiritual liberty
He burst into the Singapore arts scene with his first collection of poetry
The Giant in 1968 and later with his solo-exhibition in 1973. But soon
afterwards he left it just when he was establishing a name for himself.
In the following four years, he studied and practised the art of Buddhist
meditation. He explained later that through the process he destroyed
desires and attained spiritual liberty.
‘I found that my creation (before) was not art but only shadows of art. I
must be freed of my ego, vanity and prejudice in order to be free.’
‘The way I create art (now) shows that I am free. It comes from a state
of mind where there is a total silence and all dogmas are wiped away.
Free from all shackles, the creator is a butterfly and there is no limit to
his spiritual liberty.’
Since then his creation has never been the same again. Buddhism has
become his motivation for creation and his source of inspiration. Through
meditation, he acquires cosmic visions which he expresses in his art. He
explained:
‘Everything starts with a vision of the world, a global vision. I have ideas
and images in my mind. They materialize according to their specific
aspects. Actually, they fall into places by themselves: some become
poems, others become paintings or sculptures.’
Just as it liberates his mind, religion also liberates his art. He developed a
style that refuses to be defined, because it breaks down all forms and
conventions and everything is possible. As a result, his work has a
freshness that continues to give surprise.
Among the many things he did, he included taboo subjects such as nudes
and wastelands in his Chinese ink paintings, and made sketches of
contemporary figures with Chinese ink.
With the carpenter’s rowbrush he created the powerful life-force of
the Elephant and the sensuous beauty of the female body in Another Nude.
To portray Birds in Flight, he showed images of colourful feathers. The
colours and brush strokes are Impressionism.
Since then the artist has tirelessly devoted his life to unraveling and
understanding the meaning of life and the mysteries of the Universe.
‘Creation is a kind of exploration for me,’ he explained.
In his series of Chinese ink portraits of great men and women, he sketched
the wasted, bent body of Gandhi and the praying hands of the shrouded,
faceless Mother Teresa of Calcutta. They speak of the endless struggles
of human life.
He also created the Surrealist, dream-like image entitled Resurrection,
showing a mystical creature being resurrected in disintegration and blood.
It communicates the horror and pain of rebirth and the endless suffering in
life.
Despite this Tan's work is filled with hope and optimism, because where he
finds inspiration he also finds peace. He has discovered that the path to
artistic freedom is also the path to ultimate peace (or nirvana) and eternity.
In the carving of his small seal Union of Heaven and Man, beside the
pictorial representation of the Chinese words ‘Sky’ and ‘Man’, he unlocks the
key to eternal life in a Chinese verse:
‘When will man be one with the Universe?
When man destroys desire and transforms into light.’
Eternity
To describe his own experience of this transcendent state of being, he created
the The Six Indriyas in Chinese ink, where he became the flower with eyes,
the rock with ears, the wind with nose, the island with tongue, the mountain
with body, and the moon with consciousness.
He also produced images of serenity and beauty, populated with dancing
squirrels, birds in flight, flower fields and aromas.
How does eternity feel to the artist?
It feels like Tescani. His Morning, Tescani and Afternoon, Tescani in oil present
his colourful impressions of the landscape. He commented:
‘The silence, peace and beauty of Tescani is total, which is a reflection of the
state of mind when I am in deep meditation.’
Is artistic creation for him a prayer, a form of meditation, a kind of letting off,
a necessity, an act of communication? He replied:
‘It is all that and more. To a mirror, it is light, to the wind, it is flute, to a
boat, it is shore.’