Gavin Chai

Being a realist artist, I am interested in revitalizing historical drawing and painting techniques to represent contemporary experiences; drawing allusions to biblical themes with subtle allegories, as well as the quiet interiors of Vermeer and Hammershoi and the meditative oeuvres of Fra Angelico. Often captivated by what I see in my immediate surroundings, my subjects can vary from interiors of a kitchen, a hotel room, a table full of things to an exterior setting with someone in a neighbourhood, all within the humble context of home.

For me, home is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, home is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

I paint to make my environment beautiful, and to de-secularize what is meant to be sacred. For me, beauty and sacredness are inseparable, as light is to colour. Similar to Vermeer, I love to use light to crystalize the glow of everyday things and treat every object I paint meticulously, like precious gemstones; through glazing, layering, sgraffito, sfumato, highlighting and various experimental techniques to illuminate the mundane in a new light. I like to push the boundaries of colours by means of transcendence, where certain areas of painting will be coloured more vividly and entrancingly like glow on a diamond, or a patch of green in the desert. It is always that feeling of perpetual yearning that I want to communicate.

When I paint, it is often a process of recycling by turning the old and ordinary into a new creation, or in other sense, to turn desert grounds into green pastures. This bears a silent allusion to my belief in Eschatology, where our current earth of deterioration and pollution will one day be rebirthed into a condition of newness; and that new earth, for me, is my true pilgrimage destination, my home.