Elizabeth Wan Shyen Tay [JR RP 2024]
Antipodes (Triptych), 2025
Charcoal

The artist describes:

“Antipodes, a triptych-style series of charcoal works, explores the fleeting and often contradictory nature of emotions. Created in 2020, this series represents an earlier stage in my artistic evolution and practice, where my approach to charcoal was still developing yet already centered on emotional depth and contrast. The artwork presents singular children, isolated in their emotional states. Arranged sequentially, the triptych guides the viewer through a deliberate emotional progression, compelling them to experience the flux of emotions. The subjects—crying and immersed in tears or water—symbolize the overwhelming yet liberating nature of uninhibited emotion. Through visual distortion, the figures oscillate between suffocation and release, urging introspection on how emotions are suppressed or expressed.

Inspired by my younger siblings’ unfiltered expressions, I use this work as a medium to reflect on childhood’s uninhibited, unguarded authenticity. Antipodes ultimately seeks to heighten the viewer’s awareness of their own emotional responses, bridging the space between the familiar sensation of feeling deeply and the often-unacknowledged weight of emotional restraint exercised in adulthood.

While this piece embodies the established techniques and themes of my earlier artistic practice, it also laid the foundation for how my charcoal works have since evolved to a much larger and more detailed scale. The rawness and depth of charcoal in Antipodes served as stepping stones for my current approach, where I continue to refine texture, contrast, and emotional intensity through a variety of subjects. My artistic practice has deepened in its ability to provoke self-dialogue in viewers, encouraging an inner renewal of both themselves and the emotions that pass through them.”

$990

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