Landscape in my head

Landscape in my head draws deeply from Christine Ay Tjoe's thematic interest in the Self - the Self as a complex entity rift with conflicting needs and desires; the Self with an ego that needs to be fed and tamed simultaneously; the Self that dreams but is at the same time, continuously circumscribed in action by societal bounds. The highly personal but yet distinctly and unflinchingly apparent emotional tenor of her dry-point etchings and paintings alike are registered through the expressiveness of her linework and the sensitivity of layered applications of paint; these particular elements are amply demonstrated in Landscape in my head.

The abstract form rendered on the greater part of the picture surface is harmonised with a number of representational elements, most conspicuously the figure of a flying nymph at the lower centre of the canvas. Landscape in my head alludes to the imaginative potential, aided in its representation through the figure of the nymph and the abstract form.

The outcome is a picture that retains the sensitivity and exquisiteness of paint application in her earlier works, especially pieces from the Monologue series. At the same time, Christine Ay Tjoe progresses to working with the advantage of scale, composing an image boldly present against a background neutral in tone on one of the largest canvases she has produced to date. With a deftness of the brush, paint is applied decisively and swiftly, the turns and swirls of the brush evident in the strongly impressed and layered wasps and swirls of acrylic paint. Different colour accents are distributed across the semi-abstract image, securing for the imagery a visual exemplification of form and depth.