About Light’s Interplay
I first wanted to be a writer when I was 22. It was the doomed realisation that I, an insignificant mortal, aspired to create something that was worthy of existence–even appreciation, out of an incoherent hotchpotch of thoughts, feelings and beliefs inside my little head. I then spent my next 15 years wanting to write, trying to write, but most of the time fearing of writing.
At 25, I quit my day job to study journalism, eventually to realise I didn’t love writing news stories. Twice I was told by veteran journalists that a passion for reading alone is not enough for what it takes to be a reporter. They were right, I never got into the news industry. But journalism opened the world of professional photography to me, or at least, it allowed me to approach photography with artistic intent. It was a gentler outlet to release my creative desire without the need to confront my buried fear of writing. For the first time in my adulthood, I found again the state of creative joy, that artistic pursuit isn't all abject suffering of wishing, trying something, tearing it all apart, gazing vacantly at the blank page and failing.
In between living and dabbling in photography, I wrote sporadically, mostly at times of distress and loneliness. It was hard to tell anyone why I was troubled and unhappy when on the outside, everything was fine in my life. I was fit and healthy, my salary gave me material comfort, my families were in good health, I was in a stable relationship. I was, by societal standard, an attractive, independent young professional having an upwardly mobile life. But inside my heart, there was a dank storeroom at the end of a long corridor. If I stumbled upon the obscure corridor of memory, if I put my ear on the door of the bolted storeroom, I could hear a weak, muffled voice. In those years, I struggled to understand things like the nature of happiness, why we live, the randomness of suffering, the terrifying shortness of human life, and our futile quest for eternity. I hadn't found my vocation. I was sad and angry at myself and my conformed life. I still wanted to be a writer.
Literature to me is the prestige art form. I took my writing too seriously to just write, whereas with photography, I had much less intellectual assumption and lofty aspiration. Taking a pretty photo alone would give me a rush of excitement and satisfy my creative impulse. That attitude was what I needed in writing. Plenty of doing, let my writing to be amateur and imperfect, just as my photos are.
That photography was my gateway drug of experiencing the artist's state of mind doesn't diminish its importance to me. I love both media. I want to explore the complementing qualities between words and visuals, to let sparks of poetic authenticity swim and play with each other.
This space is where I experiment and share my observations, my private joy and distress. The small, extraordinary things that I noticed in my humdrum existence and made me feel alive.
To me, this is the role of an artist in modern times:
Scouring for poetic qualities in a manic, saturated world.
Sand, London, 2024