Boon Want’s "Heaven & Earth" series show his passions for nature. Nature stimulates and arouses his sentiments and intentions for drawing. Incidentally his ideal and aspiration matches those of Miro, a wonderful coincident !
Miro (Joan Miro, 1893-1983) considered free subconcious movement as one of the source that gave images to drawing, stressed upon the organized ideology of pattern and form and the intensity of composition. The languages used were not translating any abstract ideal, but to tell the poetic experiences of nature and reality.
Boon Want was born in 1969, in Kota Linggi, Negeri Sembilan. The fractions of his happy childhood memories remain at the time when his family was in the rubber estate business. Growing up experiences such as catching fish in the stream, top spinning, picking fight with friends were among many of his wonderful childhood memories. These episodes of his life, somewhat play an important role as a guideline when we explore deeper the reason Boon Want chooses "nature" as his subject matter.
Heaven & Earth 002
43 x 76 cm
Heaven & Earth 003
130 x 218 cm
Almost immediately after his group show in the "Periphery", Khoo sets off for another exhibition. Heaven and Earth his new series of mixed media painting and drawing is mostly executed within the last year. Khoo uses convenient art material like pencil, colour pencil, ink and brush, marker, water colour etc.
After his Nature series in 1992 and Life series in 1993, his Heaven and Earth series is more natural in theme and is subtle in technique. His experiences in oil painting and ink painting has given a lot of inspirations to his current pieces.
Heaven & Earth 005, 100 x 140 cm
His expressions are a direct reflection of life and instant reaction to experiences, both mentally and psychologically. His work touches people’s feelings and emotions :-
People are lonely
People are suffering
People are suffering from loneliness
We are people
We are the people
We are the sufferers
Suffering from loneliness
Heaven & Earth 014, 180 x 180 cm
The hidden aspects of the subjects could be seen :-
Alienation, Desire, Anxiety
Boredom, Desertion
Illusion, Hallucination
Self-indulgence, Self-exaltation
Egotism, Rejection, Self-defending
Lost in the midst of socialization
Heaven & Earth 009, 56 x 76 cm
Some recognizable shapes are :-
Surrealistic micro-organisms (worms, insects, amoeba…)
Stones and rocks
Blocks of wood (drift wood)
Animals (birds, mammals)
Human forms
Plants (flowers, grass, cactus…)
Coral and shell like objects
and some morbid imaginary
Heaven & Earth 015, 43 x 70 cm
Khoo’s painting and drawings are not just childish cartooning or comics. They are serious human views containing the paths and traces of personel search for reality in life’s experience.
Each fine line, each stroke is scrupulously laid. Lines define shapes, shapes define forms….. Through the rendering of tones, contrasts in black and white emerge. Further hues provide metamorphosis.
Heaven & Earth 021, 13 x 33 cm
They are poetic and are daily records of emotions, senses, sensibilities, humors, social life, inner life and spiritual sublimation.
By Loke How Yuan 1999
