Janiz Chan
Regrowth Some sense of place in the time of pandemic “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life—the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.” - Claude Monet, 1891 In her latest exhibition Regrowth, Malaysian artist Janiz Chan, explores the sense of place in the time of pandemic through her landscape oil paintings. For Chan, the place is a contested space between human habitation and nature. In this time of the pandemic brought about by the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), she discerned the changes in the environment. In the early Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia, she was wondering how the lock-down has affected nature. According to her, “[as] humans are step back, nature gain ground at once, when human advance, nature retreat.” It seems that in her painting entitled Lake Garden, nature has overgrown with trees and plants in varying shades of green, yellow, and pink as well as the pond full of lilies in various stages of blooming. Inspired by the Taman Tasik Perdana (Perdana Botanical Garden) built during the British colonial era in the late 19th Century, the gaps between the lily pads do not only reflect the clear blue skies above but the human intervention to manage the growth of these floating aquatic plants. These gaps suggest the subjugation of nature for human recreational purposes. In the initial phase of this public park, shrubs and local grass called Lalang were cleared and replaced with ornamental flowering trees and shrubs. The Sungei Bras Basah (Bras Basah River) was dammed up to create an artificial lake where the aquatic plants like water lilies thrived in a controlled environment. Manicured lawns, sculptured gardens, deer park, butterfly sanctuary, walkways, and other amenities were added to attract tourists and local residents into this large-scale recreational facility that is much-needed in highly urbanized places like Kuala Lumpur. Indeed, human needs have shaped the form of nature. Yet in her painting of Kinta Nature Park (Taman Alam Kinta, Batu Gajah), the largest bird sanctuary park in Malaysia, Chan imagines the recovery of nature with the lush green foliage overlaid with water hyacinth and buttercup flowers in blooms and inhabited with unseen species of birds because of the state-sanctioned MCO. But as the light blue boat traverses through the large floating colony of water hyacinth blooming in the foreground, she expresses her concern that despite the lock-down, the human intrusive activities are still present as a real threat to nature’s growth. However, when uncontrolled
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