“But through the heart, home of infinity,

For every image which should reach this place

Appears without a veil across its face.”

 

“As soon as such a figure is meant to represent not only a typical, arbitrary, anonymous, and imaginary specimen but some particular individual, known by name and living at the present or an earlier time, the figure identifies a specific person without, however, actually showing him by depicting his real features. Portraiture arises, on this basis, as the result of an act of distance-keeping, objectification and critical comparison between reality and reproduction.”

 

Preamble

 

Forms of portraiture and representation in history originated in a desire to document likeness not as a mimetic exercise, but more as a method of record or tribute reflecting the progress of humanity at large. ‘Figures’ were abstract acknowledgements that the likeness of humans existed and partook in actions of a life process before our time. In some cultures, the document of the human likeness was adapted in ritual practice to ensure the deceased could ‘find’ their physical remains long after the soul had left this plane of existence. In short, we make pictures in the likeness of ourselves almost as an imprint to remember what we look like, who we are as true to life itself.

 

It is often written that the artist Yong Mun Sen’s foray into photography was likely due to expanding his interest in the arts to earn a living where he understood the mere painter’s career would yield little commercial reward. Historically speaking, it is more accurate to underline the increased presence and prominence of mainland Chinese photographers in the Straits and in the Indies. Karen Strassler writes that many photographers arrived from Canton into the Straits at a young age, where they apprenticed early on to established practitioners whose business was renown in the region. There were in fact more Chinese photographers present in the Straits than there were European photographers. The growing population of affluent Chinese migrants had doubtlessly led to a demand for image-making of the more convenient kind, through the lens of studio photography.

 

Imaging and representation were part of modernisation, in the evolving of self-awareness in communities growing within new urban and cosmopolitan settings. Though curtailed by the Second World War, early 20th century photography in the Straits thrived through a landscape of small studios offering relatively inexpensive photographs through skilled hands and second-hand European equipment.

 

Historically, the advent of the Qing Dynasty saw the institution of Confucianism as a ‘state religion’ of sorts. The lengthy reign of the Qing rulers through wars and foreign relations tested the mettle of the Chinese elite and their visionary course of a China of schooled and principled contributors to the Kingdom. Confucianism extolled values as a reflection of man himself: an image of man was a reckoning in imaging who he was, in life, in civilisation. This stark reality challenged the philosophy of moral thought and present existence. The importance of this in Chinese culture cannot be overstated, for it provides a clear context in which we situate Yong Mun Sen, his life, and his world view, as well as his reflection as gentleman and as artist within his practice...[read more in NAFA publication]