Peace & Happiness

I did a commission of his 2 Bengal cats, and he recommended this clip to me. He was sure that I will find some semblance of truth in it… And I couldn’t agree more! So the clip below is an introductory guide to owning a playful cat, who in my case loves catching and chasing lizards, paper (crunched) balls, and his latest craze, a teddy bear key-chain which, when thrown at a fast pace resembled a mini furry creature scrambling for its dear life. Angel plays fetch of course, fetching you the above mentioned prey so that you can release it for its apparent pleasure.

The funny thing is that when we kept the teddy bear toy in a box, he would  ‘guard’ over it by pretending to sleep and flip on his back near the box, which inherently means sleeping on our notebook and pressing countless keys on the keyboard. Below are some of the “stills” of Angel.

Incidentally, Angel peed on the sofa bed so play

 

was suspended temporarily pending further investigation…

We were of course pretty angry with the “devil-in-disguise” angel, and he received some silent treatment from us. However, after some detective work, we concluded that it was done under duress. There were obviously two piles of shit, with one piece of the shitty business conducted earlier by Halo which was a tad ostentatious in terms of smell. The second piece of business was done in quite a bit of haste, with the last of his chocolate nuggets left on the step just before the exit of the covered litter box.

 

Angel at the remand centre

As I happened to wake up late in the day Angel, who I’m sure had vowed at the spur of the moment never to ever deal in that area, decided to take his business elsewhere. We were pretty upset with him, as this was the second time in two weeks. We have to strip the mattress and cushions, scrub and spray smell-curbing chemicals and personal cologne , sun (which is hard to come by in the last couple of days), and finally add a touch of Bengay cream (actually it’s for muscle ache) to sufficiently mask the stank of below-the-table business.

Angel relieved at the verdict

After serious deliberation, Angel was let off with a stern warning and found “not culpable in the first degree”. We were away for a few days in the first instance and hence not around to be his efficient toilet keepers. He got away the second time as it was quite evident that he was under considerable duress and accepted that it was all a case of bad timing.We also refrain from calling Halo as co-defendant for this smelly episode.

An original commissioned catmaSutra painting

 

called “peace and happiness”

for Truffles and Silky, aka Paul and Helen

Here’s Truffles…

 

It’s a great thing that in commissioning the painting,

they have decided to go for the catmaSutra cats

rather than straight portraits of their cats.

Silky and Truffles

It’s the spirit that matters…

 

Without the spirit,

there is nothing else…

Catmasutra 4- Big Mind, Small Mind

 A mind not to be changed by place or time,
the mind is its own place,
and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell,
a Hell of Heaven.”
~John Milton

This is a play on Play Imaginative’s flagship designer toy, Trexi – a 3-inch tall action figure with a rotating head and articulated limbs. The Catmasutra cat draws its essence from my cat Halo, and the Trexi “mini-me” draws its essence from the Catmasutra cat. They are different, yet the same, as they are both the essence of the artist. And yet in creating them, the artist is both catmasutra cat and the Trexi! Haha… And Trexi has a new Catmasutra manifestation now in addition to the ones by Tokidoki and Devilrobots… “Big Mind, Small Mind” is also an abstraction using a little Zen as a reference philosophy… So still yourself as I indulge myself…

Trace every man-made thing around us and you will be led back to the same origin – a singular thought that sets into motion new cycles that intertwine and create even more and newer cycles, that reinforces one more than the other. If the cycle gets big enough, you’ll have a powerful engine that manifests and make real, our hopes and dreams, our fears and greed, just as electricity was discovered, just as the atomic bomb was made, just as our capacity for war and peace manifests themselves internally and externally.

“Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.”

Catmasutra 4, the exhibition!

CATMASUTRA IV PAINTING EXHIBITION

UTTERLY ART – 13th – 23rd DECEMBER 2007
Tel: + 65 6226 2605 Cell: 94872006 Contact: Keng Hock
Email: utterlyart@pacific.net.sg

229A South Bridge Road Singapore 058778 2nd Level
Opening hours: 11am to 8pm, Monday to Sunday

catmasutra- Chill out with Popsicles!

A whimsical piece, “Popsicles” is the largest painting being exhibited in Catmasutra 4, this December (13th – 23th) at Utterly Art ! It measures 36″ x 36″, and features a pair of legs in stockings with the Catmasutra cat balancing as if in perfect unison with the colorful, super flat popsicle-like structures. It brings back memories of seeing children playing in one of those “fish tank” filled with colorful balls in Ikea (which disguises the need for parents to be free of their charges). Seemingly frozen yet warm and cuddly, laced with delicious temptation and playful innocence, this is the ultimate playpen for adults!

“Popsicles” is a case of waking up one morning, and wanting to do something big, fun, bright and playful. There is a mood to create a different feel, to test the elasticity between things; wahahaha I ended up combining flat colors with the cat and legs, blur the relationship between them, test gravity, play with temperatures and and put a weird flexibility to the one-dimension pops!

Catmasutra 4, the exhibition!

UTTERLY ART – 13th – 23rd DECEMBER 2007
CATMASUTRA IV PAINTING EXHIBITION

 

229A South Bridge Road Singapore 058778 2nd Level
Opening hours: 11am to 8pm, Monday to Sunday;)

Catmasutra – The Bearable Lightness of Being

Catmasutra 4, the exhibition – opening reception today, 7 pm!

UTTERLY ART – 13th – 23rd DECEMBER 2007
CATMASUTRA IV PAINTING EXHIBITION

229A South Bridge Road Singapore 058778 2nd Level
Opening hours: 11am to 8pm, Monday to Sunday

Interview with the artist at Sparklette.net

A lotus for you,
a Buddha to be.

“…the exuberant, unfolding, unpredictable universe,
expanding when it should be contracting,
made largely of something that is not something but nothing -
dark energy, anti-matter.
A thing unconfined.
What to say when the certainties fail?
Words are the part of silence that can be spoken. “

Strangely enough, I did this painting from negative to positive, from dark to light, beginning with a black-greenish background, outlined with white chalk before painting in the colors. And the lotus actually grows in muddy waters while it rises above the surface to bloom. When the sun sets, the lotus flower closes and sinks underwater but at dawn, it reappears in all its splendor, untouched by impurity. And I painted the cat in its usual cheeky and blissful self, completely oblivious of everything else but the here and now, lying on a large lotus leaf, with three fishes leading the way, guided by lotus flowers as nature’s signposts.

There is no past, no future in the here and now, just the cat drifting through a vast thought that becomes an entire universe. Everything is as they should be, the present moment as it is, without the pull of the past or push of the future – this bearable lightness of being – the only moment that really belongs to us. When we touch this moment, everything becomes real. I miss this painting already, having brought most of the paintings to the gallery.

“Do not lose yourself in the past,
do not run after the future.”

“To lose the present is to lose life.”

Quotes by Jeanette Winterson, Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh

Catmasutra 4, the exhibition!

UTTERLY ART – 13th – 23rd DECEMBER 2007
CATMASUTRA IV PAINTING EXHIBITION

229A South Bridge Road Singapore 058778 2nd Level
Opening hours: 11am to 8pm, Monday to Sunday

Catmasutra painting – Afternoon tea

Get this print at Image Kind!

This painting, completed for the Catmasutra II exhibition weaves the Catmasutra cat in and around Chinese culture! Singapore being such an urbanized city, it’s easy to get carried away with all the modernity and cultural imperialism of Western culture. But somehow, everything always returns to its origin after making a cycle or several cycles. Haha I think growing up with Chinese martial arts flicks had created more of an impression than studying Mandarin in school! Jiǔ is the Chinese word for all alcoholic beverages, with the same character used in Japanese (pronounced sake) and Korean (pronounced ju), and it is one beverage commonly found in martial arts flicks (notably Drunken Fist, Drunken Monkey, etc haha). Jiǔ also had a great impact on Chinese artists as many of the masterpieces were created in states of drunkenness! (hmmm… what was I drinking when I was painting this?) The Saint of Calligraphy , Xizhi was unable to outdo his most outstanding work, “Orchid Pavilion Prologue” because that piece was completed when he was drunk! wahahaha! And Chinese tea, it’s an art and let’s just say I have to catch up with my heritage… in a big way!

I also remember as a kid visiting the neighborhood Chinese medicine shop, and being fascinated with the huge chest of tiny drawers all containing different kinds of herbs. I’m always surprise how by matching different herbs together, you can produce the same compounds in western medicine, but in a more holistic way. Chinese medicine views the body and nature as an inseparable unit, as is the relationship between different organs, tissues, senses, etc. The philosophy behind it is based on Taoist concepts of Yin and Yang, and the aim is to restore harmony or balance to the body. It’s funny that I became interested in the ideas of Taoism only when I was studying in Canada!

Of course, there is the famous Huang Fei Hong movie in 1990, the legendary Chinese folk hero, a great martial arts exponent as well as a healer (with chest upon chest of medicine drawers, haha) . I remember walking down Chinatown in Vancouver and was immediately intrigued by the movie poster. Being a sucker for the martial arts genre (which had been dead since the early 80’s), the poster was refreshingly calm, quiet, full of confidence and controlled energy, and indeed, the movie heralded the revival of the genre. It was a big hit then and relaunched the period martial arts drama. The next revival of sorts was “Storm Riders” followed by “Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger”. Hopefully, the next breakthrough will re-define the genre further.

Take a break.
Have some Chinese tea.
Then get drunk on Maotai
(that’s really quite disgusting, actually)