the house allows one to dream in peace
Finale Art File
29 September — 23 October 2023Continuing her meditation on the immediacy of short-form content and the internet — and how the speed and mindlessness of consumption affects her and her practice — Nicole Tee looks to slowness and comfort in her recent solo exhibition, the house allows one to dream in peace. The title — taken from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space — contemplates the sanctuary provided by a space, as well as the idea that space is a reflection of the inner workings of one’s mind.
Bachelard’s thesis dives into the reciprocality of our impressions on a space, filling it with spirit and meaning, and the space’s impression on our imaginations, evoking what memory, energy, feeling has been put in. In simple terms, it is a reflection of the occupant’s soul. As such, Tee’s exhibition leans into the calm of her still life arrangements. Withdrawing from the busyness of everyday life, the space created by her art practice (and in the deliberate slowing down of making) becomes her refuge.
the house allows one to dream in peace resists the idea of homemaking and domesticity as practices that remain in the household. Traditionally feminine and confined to unwaged work, Tee’s methods and themes are often categorically relegated to craft. Homemaking is labour that is often unpaid and assigned to the woman. The inclusion of sewing and textile work in the art world are hard-won. Here, Tee pivots her usage of her textiles — an interest that has gone beyond her art practice and into dressmaking, among other things — and rather than creating a tableau that depicts a landscape (which is a traditionally more accepted form), zooms out and paints these soft sculptures as they are.
Through these paintings and soft sculptures, Tee shares her world, though in a way that allows a comfortable distance. Arranged across the floor are her textile creations: the subject of the paintings that surround the space. In the house, Tee seeks to find balance between participating in and retreating from life as we know it. Sewing is a naturally slow process, and these works are a disciplined and deliberate practice in mindfulness, and a retreat from the pursuit of immediacy as well as the impatience that pervades Tee’s life.
Bathed in neutrals — the colours Tee enjoys working with the most — the space is punctuated with pops of colour, likening them to wildflowers in a field. Wildflowers are a recurring motif in Tee’s work, recalling the signification of wildflowers as fleeting or fading away in the Bible. The impermanence of the wildflower is symbolic of the impermanence of man.
the house embodies her life’s paradox, juggling between the impatience to achieve things due to fleetingness of her time on earth and her tendency to withdraw from the active pursuit of life. And this is the space she has made to reflect that. This place is her living room, her gardenscape, her refuge and retreat. This place is yours, too.
— Carina Santos