Nina Chua makes drawings that are determined by the capacities and constraints of the materials and tools that she uses. Since 2011 she has predominately been working with marker pen on paper. Each series of drawings explores a different nuance in the process, for example the amount of ink in a marker pen, the permeability of cheap A4 or the resilience of paper pulled from a roll.
The drawings are abstract dealing with line, colour and form. They are often made up of straight lines or scribbles drawn repeatedly to cover the surface of the paper. Marker pen is an unforgiving medium and marks cannot be erased or reworked. Every slip of the hand and lapse of control is visible and the process of its making is fully revealed in the drawing. The transparency of the visual information and the accumulative quality of the marks convey a sense of time spent, through the gradual application of line after line.
Nina Chua was born in 1980 in Manchester, UK. She graduated form am MA in Fine Art from Manchester School of Art in 2011. Chua lives and works in Manchester. Recent exhibitions include: Everything Must Go (Part 2) , Workplace Foundation, And a 123, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK, 11:17, CBS Gallery, Liverpool, UK, The Latest, Blip Blip Blip, Leeds, UK, Life and Opinions, Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Germany, From A to C, this being B, Caustic Coastal, Manchester, UK, Green Room, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK. Nina is part of the 2016 Liverpool Biennial Associate Artist Programme and has work in the Whitworth Art Gallery Collection, Manchester, UK.
About Kwong Lee:
Kwong Lee works as a producer for Manchester International Festival. Between 2005 and 2016, he was the Director of Castlefield Gallery (CG), a publicly funded contemporary art venue and artist development agency. His recent freelance work has been with universities, artist groups and individual artists. From 2013 to 2016, Lee co-chaired Contemporary Visual Arts Manchester (CVAM), part of a national network, consisting of organisations, art professionals and artists that promotes and supports the work of the city region’s visual art eco-system. He is on the Board of Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art.
Lee has lectured and taught at a number of universities. He has presented at conferences, seminars and symposia, and has enjoyed chairing discussions on contemporary art practice. As an artist he has exhibited in the UK (e.g. at the Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery), nationally and in Hong Kong and Japan.
Transcript:
Miles Thurlow Good evening, everyone. My name is Miles Thurlow and I'm the co-founder of Workplace Foundation, which is a charity set up by Workplace Gallery to support emerging and underrepresented artists based in the north of England. This week, artist Nina Chua will be talking about her work with producer and curator Kwong Lee. Nina Chua makes drawings that are determined by the capacities and constraints of the materials and tools that she uses. Since 2011, she has predominantly been working with marker pen on paper. Each series of drawings explores a different nuance in the process. For example, the amount of ink on a mark in a marker pen permeability of cheap A4 or the resilience of paper pulled from a roll. The drawings are abstract, dealing with line, colour and form. They are often made up of straight lines or scribbles drawn repeatedly to cover the surface of the paper. Marker pen is an unforgiving medium and marks cannot be erased or reworked. Every slip of the hand and lapse of control is visible and the process of its making is fully revealed in the drawing. The transparency of the visual information and the accumulative quality of the marks convey a sense of time spent, though, through the gradual application of line after line. Nina Chua was born in 1980 in Manchester, UK. She graduated from an MA in Fine Art in Manchester School of Art in 2011. She lives and works in Manchester. Recent exhibitions include Everything Must Go Part Two at workplace foundation and one to three at Castle Field Gallery, Manchester, 11 17 CBS Gallery, Liverpool life and Opinions. Tanya Leighton Berlin from A to C, this being B caustic coastal Manchester. Nina is part of the was part of the 2016. Liverpool Biennial associate artist programme and has work in the Whitworth Art Gallery collection Manchester. Kwong Lee works as a producer for Manchester International Festival. Between 2005 and 2016, he was the director of Castlefield Gallery.... artist development agency, freelance work has been with universities, artist groups and individual artists from 2013 to 2016 Lee co-chaired contempprary visual arts Manchester, part of a national network consisting of organisations, arts professionals and artists that promotes and supports the work of the city's region's visual arts ecosystem, is on the board of the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art. Lee has lectured and taught in a number of universities. He has presented at conferences, seminars and symposia and has enjoyed chairing discussions on contemporary art practise. As an artist, he has exhibited in the UK at the Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery, Nationally and in Hong Kong and Japan. So as usual, we'll try and make time for questions. If you can make use of the Q&A function on Zoome, if you're part of the webinar, then I'll I'll try and interrupt Nina and Quong at the end.
Miles Thurlow And here I am now going to, welcome OK, I am going to welcome Nina. Nina, are you there?
Miles Thurlow Hello, Nina.
Nina Chua Hello.
Miles Thurlow And Kwong. You should be here. Hello.
Kwong Lee Hi.
Miles Thurlow Its good to see you.
Miles Thurlow So, as usual, I'm going to disappear into the background and I will be in charge of images. So please do order me around, tell me, you know, to to scroll to the next, you know, next piece or whatever. Over to you.
Nina Chua Thank you.
Kwong Lee Thank you. Miles. So good to have this opportunity to have a chat with you, Nina and thanks, Miles, for the opportunity. So, Nina.
Nina Chua Yes.
Kwong Lee I've worked with you over many years, but mostly at my time at Castlefield Gallery, in Manchester. But more recently, we've been sort of fellow studio holders at Paradise Works in Salford, where you are still working from. And I've left and not not been in the studio. I've really sort of observe your work from your sort of M.A days at Manchester School of Art to now really, and it's really evolved, you know. And it's really I would say I would be interested in my observations, that your work has kind of developed to expanded drawing, painting practise kind of thing. And as Miles said in the introduction, a lot of your work is kind of it's kind of process and is using material. So I want to start with asking you about your your kind of relationship to material and materiality, because you your your you've been working with paper and marker pens for many years. Could you sort of tell us a bit more about how you got into working with those particular medium.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee And yeah. And what attracts you to it and how how you find working with, you know, your strict sets and set of rules, which is, you know, those marker pens and paper.
Nina Chua Yes, I'll try. And I suppose firstly, even though. I do work within the like capacities and constraints of the paper of the medium and the tools. I don't think there's any set rules. Um, so. You know, the work is quite restless and and moves around quite a lot. Even within the. erm you know, even just using the paper and the marker pens. And I suppose. Just going back to when I first started using marker pen on paper, it was purely because I like the. I just liked what I did on the paper. So there's something about the marker pen that just really kind of the boldness of the colour and how it could saturate. That was a really important thing because it really right from the start. I was working on both sides of the paper treating the paper not just as a surface to be drawn on, but as a as a thing in itself, as an object. So I was really, you know, drawing on one side and turning it over and seeing what the mark did and the the markerpen really saturates through and then. I think that's what drew me to it first and foremost. Yeah, it's really just gone from there.
Kwong Lee You mentioned surfaces. Sorry, go. Sorry you carry on.
Nina Chua No its ok.
Kwong Lee So I was going to sat, you mentioned about the surfices and you started working on both sides and.
Nina Chua Yes.
Kwong Lee On a studio on the visit to your studio just recently, I kind of realised that, you know, your. You also did that with very large pieces of paper. Yes. So so that kind of that kind of using the surfaces, not only as surfaces, but as an object that the the kind of the paper. How you treat that as an object that it doesn't it's not a flat surface. It's not you're not layering things on top of each other that is hiding, you know, like a like some painting. You can some paint you can hide a mark by painting over, but with your marker pens. Is it right to say that you can't really hide?
Nina Chua No.
Kwong Lee Layering in the very translucent kind of way is.
Nina Chua Yeah. It's very difficult to you know, it's it's it's it's not like a wet medium like paint is. So you can't paint over blur or disguise what you do it's erm. So yeah every mark is is visible. And and I suppose another thing I like about the and markerpen and the paper is that they're just very readily available and it's that kind of immediacy. You know, just. I think that's what I like about drawing as well, is just, you know, it's easy to get hold of the materials and just make a mark and. Just em. Yeah. Just spontaneously and in that moment and and very quickly and yeah,.
Kwong Lee And I I guess what strikes me as well when we look at your work, is that how. How you transform the Material, I know, I know many people, many artists, you know, use this phrase transforming, you know, from one material to another. Your work is very much process driven. I don't want to. You know, I'm being quite careful, with my words, because I think, like you were saying earlier, it's kind of restless. You don't want to be kind of fixed on a system. I think you're very fluid in that way. But I what what strikes me about your work is that you work right to the edge of the paper. In fact, beyond the edge. Round round the back of the paper.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee And so hence sometimes double sided, sometimes single sided. But the totality of that is quite interesting. And you mentioned something to me recently about just remind me that actually your your connexion with fabric and textiles. Do you want to sort of go into that a little bit? Because, you know, in a way you can kind of have that you can think of that reference with you as a viewer. You can really think of fabrics.
Nina Chua Yeah, well, I before I studied fine art, I studied embroidery and. You know, when i did it, it was a great cause, I really loved it. It really was the start of me drawing and there was a strong emphasis on mark making in that course. So. You know, that really was the start for me. And but then I think with a piece of cloth, you've always got this sense that it can be shaped. you know, it's either going to go. It's it's usually going to be turned into something that's like fits the body or fits an interior or. I think one of my teachers used to say textile people are into textiles, always like the back more than. More than the front. And there was this and there's this sort of motion, you know, with with the needle. You can draw a line with a needle, but you're puncturing the material. You're puncturing that flat material and moving from one side to another. So you're constantly turning it. And I think that just even though I did for a long time, try to move away from my textile background and it just comes through in the work. It's just there in the way that I handle materials it is there in the way that I think it's very deeply embedded, I think. And even going right back to my childhood, my grandma was somebody that liked like to craft. So she was always knitting and sewing. And, you know, I picked up a lot from from that. So I think it's just just. Yeah. Very deeply embedded and in the sort of way that I think. So I think that that comes through in the drawings, how I treat the drawings and looking at both sides and thinking about the the pen and really penetrating through the material and that sort of fusing of the the, um, the paper and the pen, you know.
Kwong Lee And just to follow up on that, really, of course, your work is. It's non-representational. It doesn't you know, even though we I mentioned the fabric kind of textiles relationship, it's not, you know, its very obvious you're not trying to replicate something. You're not trying to represent an object. It is an object in itself that you're working with, you know.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee The pen. But I kind of wonder, you know, more and more your your work has been, you know, from your straight lines, you know, the earlier work where, you know, you would draw hundreds and hundreds of straight lines with lines with a straight edge. But obviously, we can still see the action of the artists. ie you and your hand gestures maybe from left to right or left, right to left whichever way you know one may read it. But you're more more in your recent work has kind of got more kind of fluid in a way of different freehand lines.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee I want to ask you how important is the mark. Is mark making in your work, as in you know, and then showing the mark making in your in your work? Is it just is it part of the process or important to show those?
Nina Chua When I first started making the markerpen the drawings with the markerpen and. I was using a ruler and in a way, I was trying to escape any gestural mark by using a ruler, a 30 centimetre ruler and just making straight lines. And, you know, I was trying to sort of move away from any expressive or gestural mark and. Just to really bring it back to the paper and the pen and just to see what it would it could do. And then, you know, I've been making these drawings for nearly 10 years now. And so, like I said, the you know, you I said, some things change and shift. And the drawings have their own sort of rhythm and they suggest things to me. And and it's just moved. And, you know, and sometimes as well, I feel like. Once I've been doing something for for a while, like I say straight lines. I just need to do the complete opposite. I just really need to shake it up. And partly, you know, for my own sanity and for my own, for that for that for the challenge. And, you know, to keep the work moving forward because I don't want to keep repeating the same things. And, you know, which is the one of the difficulties in a kind of the type of work I make is keeping it keeping it moving forward and keeping it from stopping, from being becoming stale. So, you know, sometimes. And, yeah, we'll just. And whatever I've been doing i will, just stop and do the complete opposite. So, you know, from making straight lines to making much more fluid. And you could say, you know, expressive lines. And there was also something as well, a certain point. And. The drawings are getting bigger, and I just became much more aware of the physicality of the drawings and the paper and also of my own movements. So that was then something that I became quite interested in, you know, like using the full sort of stretch of my arm, the full you know, and I'm just thinking about the drawings on a different scale. And sort of on and maybe like an a sort of human scale, my scale. And now, you know, I'm thinking of the drawings even on a bigger scale. And so just, yeah,.
Kwong Lee I think that's really interest because I picked that up because I, I, I did. I did the fine art course where I did painting. And I I'm always when I when I look at art particularly kind of 2D or the so-called 2D art, I always look at surfaces and, and kind of mark making the mark making within a drawing or painting. And I could really see the action of you within the work, even though non-representational. And that's really understood. But but nevertheless, that kind of that kind of relationship, the objects the work has with the artist is really interesting. I find that, you know, you say that the scale of it is kind of human, your your size and you're thinking about bigger. And I kind of wonder if even your smaller work on A4 paper.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee You know, they also give a kind of imprint of your movements in a sense kind of thing.
Nina Chua Yeah. they do.
Kwong Lee Which which brings me on to that kind of you know, you also said when you're making work, sometimes you would turn the paper, you know, in the studio, you would quite naturally just. Maybe there is a sense that you want to disrupt your processes, saying, you know what you said you wanted to turn it upside down. Different ways. Can you, do you.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee You want to explain a bit more about that, how you know when do you decide that to happen?
Nina Chua Yeah. I don't know. When I decide, it can be quite spontaneous that I. Um. You know, sometimes the drawing is just come to a stopping point and I need to look at it from a different angle. But there's always just I always the only thing I want really from each drawing is that it surprises me. And so I want to move away from any sort of preconceived notion I have of the drawing or any um pre-empting what it might be. And so I am you know, what I sometimes, you know, can get, you know, partway through a drawing and just take it off the wall, turn it upside down or turn it the other way. And that, you know, will happen usually quite a few times. And it just helps just, yeah, it just kind of helps me to get away from anything I might be doing that shaping it, In a certain, you know, shaping in a certain way. And and, you know, maybe um. Yeah again, it makes it more difficult. You know, it just is sort of it does it disrupts it. That's that's just the easiest way to put it just disrupts the process.
Kwong Lee It does really come through because I think I think when I look at your work, I get I get this kind of especially the size are not uniform, I mean. I mean, actually, you're the the scale of your paper has always been an interesting thing, because I know that from the pre cut paper that you you have used, you kind of are using a roll paper that you cut free hand so hence, the kind of more kind of natural, shall we say, edges that you get, kind of thing.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee Is that is that right that you're kind of.
Nina Chua Yeah. I just cut it from a roll. And again, it's because I like this. It's an immediate thing. I don't, you know, mark it out. I just go for it. I just cut it. And then, you know, pin it on the wall and make a mark. And this is quite that's quite quick. You know, I'm not I don't deliberate over it and I don't sketch anything out. And I try not to come up with too many ideas before I start just um. Yeah, just. And yeah, that ut edge, sometimes is a bit wobbly because I've just just pulled the paper off the roll and just cut it with a Stanley knife Or a pair of scissors, you know, it's just very quickly.
Kwong Lee And and the way that you work, the way that you kind of work means that actually that. The edges are not edges at all, I think. I think they're quite exspansive, as in, you know, I could imagine the marks kind of going beyond the paper or what im trying to say is that I feel that the the edges of the paper, the surface doesn't kind of contain the lines and the marks and the colour that they are imbued. I dunno if that's an effect that not effect thats the reading that you you kind of like people to get to to to get away from the illusion of this. There's a piece of paper here kind of thing it's an object.
Nina Chua I mean, I don't know if i had thought of it exactly like that, but um. I mean, the paper has it's sort of natural spring to it and and it sometimes brings back to reveal the other side. And I think i was. Been interested in this idea that. Um, you know, the drawing not just as a surface, as a thing, and also something. You know, where you might not necessarily see all of it. So it's something that I sometimes think of as I'm like the the private life of the drawing, you know, it's something that it retains for itself. And it might like in this one on the screen at the moment, you know, you get a sort of glimpse of what's on the other side. But you can never really you will never see the other side. So it's this sense that it's more than just a surface. All though there's nothing wrong with being a surface. And yet it's just um. I don't know if that answers this question.
Kwong Lee It does, it does. I I'm I'm kind of still fixated on the idea of the piece of paper an artwork as its own object as opposed to as a piece of paper kind of thing. So it kind of is completely so holistic in that way. And the other thing I was going to say is that the. Even the scale of the work. I feel like I can dive in. I feel like I I mentioned to you the day when I was in the studio. I feel like sometimes I want to see them as a very small kind of point of view as a you know, as an insect. Looking at your work or or see them or project them up really big. I mean, not not to change them, but. But they are. So there's a macro micro kind of way of looking at them. So. So even though on one hand they're kind of that human scale. But on the other hand, because of fine mark making and the, what it does to me is that I can't fixate on the scale once i'm there, which is really, really interesting to me kind of thing. Do you do you get lost in your own work in that sense.
Nina Chua Sometimes. Yeah. Because I even sometimes work on it rolled up so I can't see the whole thing. And I will move into it and work on some areas of it and then step away from it. And I think because even on the very big drawings. I use um, you know, I don't I don't really scale up the pen. You know, I just use the usually the fine marker pens. So there is this kind of, you know, in order to cover the surface that this sort of depth of marks and. And yes, sometimes, especially maybe with the A4 drawings where this the saturation occurs, it when I look at them, sometimes I feel like I can see the fibres of the paper, but I kind of get pulled into the work. And the same thing happens sometimes if, um, when there's just a lot of marks like this drawing that's on the screen now. There's so many tiny, tiny marks and then there's bigger, more almost like more calligraphic marks on the top of it. And so I think you can I can tune in to certain areas and look at them and then zoom back out and look at the whole thing. So, yeah. I mean.
Kwong Lee Sorry, you carry on.
Nina Chua No I've lost the thread.
Kwong Lee No, I think I think that I got I got really lost in in the minutiae and then imagining myself looking in in a different point of view in them. And that's really intriguing for essentially a kind of quiet a flat kind of thing, you know. And and. You mentioned something earlier, which I wanted to explore a bit more, is that you said you sometimes work on the role and I think, rather than a piece of paper pinned onto a wall. Can you have kind of expand on that a little bit? You know, when you say a role is a role of paper that, you know, a drawing paper that you have,.
Nina Chua Yeah it might be something that's been on the wall and I've already worked on and then taken it off the wall because sometimes, again, to distance, you know, to get away from any ideas that I have about the drawing and what it might become. I take it off the wall and then store it in its in a rolled form and sometimes I'll just, you know, just have it in the studio and it might be sat there for months and months and months and then i will just make some marks on it as it's rolled up and. There's just yeah, is something I could just tune into something on that, you know, on that particular at that particular time and and just kind of go for it. And. Yes. And so it could be they often will be. And the ones I work on rolled up will be like maybe three, four metres in width and then they'll roll up into you, you know, sort of roll off maybe about 30 centimetres. Diameter. So this quite a sort of. Like sort of circumference. That I can work on, you know, and there's quite a lot of space I can work on even as it's rolled up and. And it's again, it's just another way of disrupting their. Disrupting. Yeah. My thoughts and ideas about it. And. And then, you know, I'll unroll it, put it back on the wall and just see what those marks have done and see, you know, it's sort of shifted shifted this like what the drawing might be. You know, and sometimes it's. Kind of pushed it into pushed it somewhere, which is, you know, might think is not not particularly good, but I would, you know, try to try to see what can what can happen with it.
Kwong Lee I think that's really, in a way, kind of quite obviously intuition, but also taking, knowing and knowing kind of the risk. Well, risk is probably not the right word here. But that kind of play and pushing the medium further, which which leads me to some other works I saw recently, which of yours which is the the floor pieces that I saw, which were which were really intriguing in that note, because I saw them on the floor. I think I asked you whether you work with them on the wall or on the floor, how you know, because there was so I mean, they they because they were three. They 3-D. Yeah. Do you want to those? So say anything more about how how you how you develop these this series of work.
Nina Chua Um, yeah, I could. I mean, first of all, my work on them, on both sides. So usually quite large piece of paper. Many metres. And then I really just cover the surface. And I you know, it's even it's even if I look at it and it's it's a good drawing. Um. I don't want I don't want the ones that scrunched up like this to be the sort of rejects flat drawings, and these are like, you know, they got some interesting quality in, you know, as a as a drawing that would be shown on the wall. But then there's this kind of in I'll take it off the wall and. Just scrunch it just like use sort of and you just get to scrunched up. And sometimes it's like takes quite a lot of pressure. Really really compress it. Really kind of try to and just really squash it down and then just the paper with it. Has this it, it's it's expanders back out again and kind of finds its own form and an. I think there's something in this, just the time it takes to apply the markerpen on both sides. You know, that very, very long process. And then this scrunching process, which is really quick and all quite brutal and physical as well. And there was just something in it for me, you know, something that, you know, because I sort of form a sort of relationship with these things. And then. Yeah just somehow just crushing, it just seemed like such a brutal thing to do. And I sometimes look at them and they sort of well, for me, they become these sort of um, damaged things. These you know like broken broken things, and there's something I think that I'm just another element to the work, it just adds. It add something to it. Um.
Kwong Lee They again, remind me of the, They've kind of become their own thing. It feels like they are kind of so, almost like kind of futuristic I. When I saw them, I kind of, you know, sprung to mind that they could be they could be 3D printed or they could be a.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee Something that is designed to look like hand made. In a way this is kind of what I'm trying to say is that in the context of now, it feels like they, they, they, they transform from being an object to something that could be a digital object kind of thing almost. And that might be my own interpretation because they were so fresh, because I hadn't seen that series of work and they were so big kind of thing that I could. Again, once again, I could see the relationship of the artists kind of hand or physical kind of relationship to it kind of thing. So. So you're saying this springs back sometimes. So. So,.
Nina Chua Yeah. You know, I really, really compress it with all my strength. And then it just sort of springs back. And sometimes it you know, I've with some of them are really gone in and compressed them many, many times. And then they really become the paper gets sort of bruised and marks um and and. And then it loses its flexibility. It loses its spring. It sort of. And it becomes this an. Sort of floppy thing. But I think something for me about the it really brings to the fore this sort of physicality of the paper and. The nature of the paper, you know, and. And again, moving away from the paper just as a as a as a surface to be worked on it, so like, you know, really instead it becomes very much just part of the drawing. And. And the and, yeah, just...
Kwong Lee I was I think I was curious, sort to ask you last time about how you want them displayed and and obviously in some of the slides that Miles is scrolling through, some of those. Scrunch the large scrunch up works, some of them are on the floor display on the floor and some of them on plinths kind of thing. Is that how you intend to show these piece to these particular works kind of thing? Are they are they floor pieces, as it were?
Nina Chua I think so. I think most of them are floor pieces because this is hovering over them. Again, it is just that that viewpoint of being over it. It is an. I think it. It just brings to mind certain things, I think it just somehow works if they if if they're on the floor. And you look at them from above. But then this one that was on the plinth, it just somehow found a home on a on a plinth. I don't know why that one should be on a plinth, but I get it. It just goes back to that thing. There are no kind of rules and regulations. And, you know, if it if if I think I'm starting to make rules, I try and break them just to. Yeah.
Kwong Lee Yeah, no, that that that's that's coming across really clear, actually, because I think I think that live decision making that you as an artist, you make, even when the work is done and the way you display or the way you you you you present the kind of thing. And I noticed that a lot of your work, the wall based work, are kind of just pinned sometimes just pinned to the wall. So,.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Kwong Lee So it's not hiding the the fixtures in a sense, because if you go up close you can see the pins, but and you could see some of the holes where you, you know, use pins previously for example. But the curls and the natural shape of the, the drawing kind of kind of is there on display in a sense. I mean, I was going to ask you about, you know, the question about, you know, how, you know, the wallbase work. Are they. Is that the way you you would ideally display them? Do you see them framed sometimes? You know, what was your relationship with framing it kind of thing?
Nina Chua I don't I really don't like the drawings framed then. I know sometimes just for practical reasons, they have to be framed. But I really feel like it just traps them, you know, really. Um. Kind of just contains them too much. Um.
Kwong Lee That makes sence.
Nina Chua Yeah, I just I really ideally. If if I didn't if practicalities didn't need to be considered, it would just be too small pins in the top corner of the drawing. And that works for the big ones as well.
Kwong Lee Yeah.
Nina Chua And then, yeah, you've got this. Sense of it um being more free in a way and not being contained too much.
Kwong Lee Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense, actually. You know, I think, you know, even even the framing now with the slides kind of gives it the edges that it needs to be free in a sense kind of thing. So I think that another question, which is maybe a silly question, really, kind of which I need to ask. I feel like so I want to know how you start your work, you know, with a blank piece of paper. And how do you finish your work? You know, when do you know you're finished? I think it's a silly question. I think but.
Nina Chua No, it's not silly at all. It's like. These questions are sort of eternally perplexing to me. And and then the starting the work, you know, it's just. One of the tricky things is when you're confronted with a white space and what you know, what what do you draw? You know, what? What do you do? And it's just no matter how many drawing I make, I always, you know, I often say I often think now what you know, what do I do now? And I'll just sit there and look at the surface of the paper and. And I don't know what to do. You know, I don't know how to start and I don't really want to know how to start. You know, I just it's just. Something, you know, each one is different. Sometimes as I do there's sort of a trigger point. It's like a little spark. Sometimes even just going through the motions and just, you know, just applying a mark, but it's it's. It's just. Yeah, I think it is a really interesting question about how to start and. And yet I don't know if I know how to do it, you know, I suppose you just start by putting a mark and then. Well, I do. And then see seeing where it goes. But, um, you know, like I said, each one is slightly different. So there isn't really a set starting point for me. And then when to finish thats that, again, is just varies from drawing to drawing and sometimes because I don't. Sometimes it's within the logic of the drawing because I don't reject that logic. You know, in it there's some some drawings, you know, there is a sort of sense of I want to get from A to B, you know, maybe like from one side of the paper to the other. Or I want to completely cover the front and back. So then this that's within the logic of the paper. And some or sometimes, you know, I'll use em running, I'll use a marker pen until it runs out. So that's in the kind of logic of it as well, you know, into it until the markerpen dies and then other times they just stop. When they stop and just spend a lot of time in my studio just looking at looking at things and looking at the work on the wall and just. Well, sometimes I come into my studio in the mining as fresh eyes and do something about that drawing, will just strike me something that didn't strike me the day before and that, you know, that sometimes suggests to me. OK. You can just stop now. And then at the moment, I've kind of been disregarding that moment and it's, you know, just saying, OK. You think you can stop now? This drawing is actually doing something, but you're not. You know, just keep keep going with it. Keep going. Keep pushing it. Keep. Add something else on top of it. Disrupt it. You know, upset. Just ruin it. Basically. Just keep keep going and see if you can get to another point with it. And. Yet the stopping point, again, is different in as well. These are the things that even within the marker pen and paper I've worked here for so long, I just keep finding these different things, just that kind of. Just to keep it going and keep it. And. Yeah, just, you know, keep it from becoming too. Too rigid or too, you know. Too much of anyone thing,.
Kwong Lee Yeah, I was thinking about that because I was thinking, you know how because you you you you have certain processes, but you also break your you know, you dont want to get into fixated with certain rules kind of thing. And then actually that that must make it very difficult. So to to to know. When to stop. But then that's the dilemma for many artists who make work, that is not a No. I guess that's the dilemma for many artists. I'll leave it there, actually, because that is I. I've known that a little bit as well. But that's why I thought it was a silly question. But but nevertheless, it's so intriguing because, you know, sometimes I can imagine you may do something that you think, oh, I maybe shouldn't have done that or you know, or maybe does. Do you ever push your work over the edge? That becomes like you can't you know, that that, you know, is ruined in a sense or you can't use it anymore.
Nina Chua Yes. I don't know. I can't really identify when it is or what that point is, but yes, sometimes I do. Not all of them work out. You know, not all of them become. Not all of them are good enough. And. And sometimes I'd just be. I just I can't go any further with it. I can't do anything with it. It Just. I. Yeah, but it's really, really difficult for me to pin down what it is that, you know, brings makes me think that. But then even then, I don't really throw them away. I roll them up and then later date I get them out and see if my thinking, my feelings towards that thing have changed. If it's if it suggests something else to me, because I think often it is about. Getting away from, you know, what I wanted to do or what I am, you know, think about it. And and yet and then sometimes I do just come take one out after many months or many years. And and it will suddenly some sort of a spark will of you know, will strike and i will just be able to do something with it. And but not always. Some of them go go in the bin. Not many, but some of them do.
Kwong Lee Yeah. It just reminds me that it's a kind of life long kind of process in a sense. You know, things marks that you might have made months ago, or years ago, has another has a different context depending on your where you are in the moment. In a sense, I think what I'm trying to say is that, you know, rather than having a finish point, that that's what I'm trying to get at I suppose, you know, same way that I see some of the workers expanding from the edges, they don't really end the work in terms of time line. Also doesn't may not end as well, because, you know, once you see certain. There's certain ways of reading your work that i see. It can kind of continue in your mind as well. I'm I'm not explained this properly by I. I think what's really intriguing about your work is that it seems to be kind of bit timeless in the way that it suggests. Timeline is not a fixed thing in as much as the edges are not a fixed thing kind of thing. So thats the association I want to get.
Nina Chua Yeah, that's I think that's interesting for me to to hear.
Kwong Lee Yeah.
Nina Chua Yeah. Just I think they are a bit like restless and difficult things to pin down and I mean, you know, sometimes I think what or what sometimes I look for is like something. At the same time, it is coming together is falling apart as well, especially in the most recent work. You know, there's sort of hints of something emerging from this sort of massive lines, something that your eye maybe can tune into, but then it just disintegrates again. So yeah this sort of you know, this is what you said, it makes sense to me.
Kwong Lee Yeah, I'm I'm saying that in that way, as an experience really. Yeah, no, it's this is it's always fascinated me. How, how, how something I understand why it is this lines on paper. But it has that kind of depth and. It plays around with the time, the kind of non-linear reading of something that I wouldn't...
Nina Chua I think because it because I also just in a sort of simple way. Because you can see every mark on the paper. There's this sense of it almost being like a tally or something like, you know, every mark is kind of a sort of marker of that moment. And then that accumulates and it gets in tangled and knotted up and you can't follow the you know, you lose the line in the other lines. So there's this maybe make sense of. Yeah, that's sort of the sort of tally kind of going wrong or, you know. Yeah. Just. Something like that,.
Kwong Lee Yeah. No, I just find them, you know, it's like it's like when you when you read, when you read something old, watch something, that kind of timelessness is this is somehow I get very drawn to in your work. Miles, are we. We are ten to now. Do do we want to go sort of more in to questions I have some prompts and stuff, but.
Miles Thurlow Hello. Can you hear me?
Nina Chua Yes,.
Miles Thurlow Brilliant, that was great. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I've got a couple of questions. Is the work sculpture or is it painting?
Nina Chua Well, I would say drawing. So neither. But yeah, I suppose these things. You know, the the parameters, the parameters, these definitions are always um. Who knows it's always like a grey areas, but I really think of it as drawing. um yeah.
Miles Thurlow Yeah. Could you talk a little bit about colour and how you choose colour? It seems that there are very specific decisions going on here.
Nina Chua I'm not sure. I mean, I think that is really intuitive with me. I mean, I use a Sharpie marker pens, so, you know, use the colour palette is predetermined. And there is a sort of certain amount of colour mixing. And also with the bleed through. And you know, but, yeah, it's a very intuitive thing, I don't I don't really. Think about colour theory. It's um and sometimes it can be just in the practical sense of what's available to me at that time. Things like going through the pen box and picking out the, you know, the ones that are still working, things like that. That all comes into the work and then and somehow shapes it again, moving away from my conscious decisions about what it might be or the sort of ideas I have about it. Is that the colour is just an um. It a. Don't think about the theory of it too much, at all.
Miles Thurlow I have a question which is from me really, and we've talked about this a little bit before, and it's that it's a bit about vocation and kind of expanding a little bit upon what Kwong was saying about time. And this sort of works expanding in time beyond themselves. And I was really interested in the idea that actually that this work in itself is a is it is an ongoing vocation that you're kind of drawn to it. You kind of you know, this is this is a practise that I feel is is ongoing. And it sort of taps into. Nursing, because I knew I knew you were a nurse. But I had forgot about it and then I...
Nina Chua Miles you have just broken up, So I missed that end bit you said.
Miles Thurlow Can you hear me?
Nina Chua Yeah.
Miles Thurlow Am i back.
Nina Chua Yeah. You're back.
Miles Thurlow Talking too quickly I think just now. um. I knew you were a nurse, but I'd forgotten. And when lockdown started, I got in touch with a number of artists just to sort of cheque in and see how things were. And you kind of got back with this amazing and almost heartbreaking sort of response about your experience as a nurse. And I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about that if if it if possible, you know, just your experiences really of being an artist, and being a nurse at this time.
Nina Chua hmm. Well, I think I'm still trying to make sense of it. I found it a little bit difficult um just. Well, if I go back to the start of lockdown, then at first I was just really happy to have a job and was just getting on with it really, and just hadn't really had much time to reflect on it. And then, you know, the sort of sense of camaraderie and the public support was really good. And then as things have progressed, it's just it's been really chaotic at times. And it's really, really sad to see the patients not being able to have family visits. And they that's just it's really just so you know, sometimes they're going to be very difficult things and, you know, without the support of their family. So that's really sad to watch. And, you know. I think, yeah, it's just I'm. I think it's. And then there's a lot of changes at the hospital. Lots of people have been moved, that wards that have closed down, staff displaced. And and these things just have. You know, they just sort of impacts on your resilience, I think. And then for me, I you know, I've watched a lot of my colleagues. They've got coronavirus. I got coronavirus. And I've passed it to my mom, who was really quite ill, had to go to hospital and she's still recovering now. So you just have these sort of. Yeah. Just. It is just I think it's. It's just really been. a sort of this a strange and emotional and difficult time. I mean, that's my experience because there's a lot of people in the hospital maybe. And that workload has been just the same or even slightly less than usual, because there's not as many people in the hospital. And so on a day to day basis. You know, you can have good shifts and. And then there's a lot of disruption, a lot of change. And I think that this kind of just underlying all these things just yet, just impacting on you just a little bit. And I'm just a really strange time.
Miles Thurlow Are you able to to make work at all in this.
Nina Chua Yeah.
Miles Thurlow This time.
Nina Chua Yes. Yeah. I mean, my studio was closed at first and I really missed going into the studio and then. As soon as I could, I just got straight back in the studio because I think it's. um just for me, you know, I feel like the pull of the work, like the work sort of calls me to make it. And if I don't want to leave to too big a gap, I don't you know, and I want to get back to it because I think you can just lose the momentum or the thread of it or. And, you know, it's something for me that I like to do um as much as possible, so, you know, when I'm not at the hospital, just go into the studio and and even just sometimes not always productive time. Sometimes just procrastinating or just looking at things I'm not always, you know, making drawings. But it is really important to me to go in and and make them and give it the time and space that it needs.
Miles Thurlow Well, thats a beautiful answer to my question, I don't have any more Kwong do you have something? i saw something ping up but im not sure.
Kwong Lee There's a few things on the on the web chat and there. Shall we go to those? This might lead on if I may Miles. Lead on and I think it was before you said to you. You explain your nursing role. But Mike asks. Mike says. How beautiful the work is. But all the drawings in any way cathartic. He asks.
Nina Chua I don't know. I think maybe a little bit. And there is something um therapeutic about going into the studio, but it's not the reason I make them um at all. And, you know, I don't make it as a kind of form of therapy. um, you know, its a first and foremost, then I make them um as drawings as for other people, because I think you always make them with a. You know, with with a mind sharing them with an audience. So. Yeah, there is an element maybe of it, but, yeah, I think it's not the foremost thing.
Miles Thurlow There's a question here. Do you always know which is the front side or is this also part of the restlessness of the drawings does the front and back change as you were making the work?
Nina Chua Yeah, it does. And. But then there's always a side that just just seems to settle on that side. You know, it just seems to be. There's some there's some drawings that could it could, you know, visually, it could be either side. Each both sides are interesting as as a drawing, but there's just often um, you know, just it settles in one particular way and then that becomes it's you know, what it is.
Miles Thurlow Sandra asks, Do you do you use both hands, Nina?
Nina Chua Oh, um not really.
Miles Thurlow Then she goes on to ask, or have you used any extensions on your body? as drawing tools as well?
Nina Chua No. Not yet. Maybe in the future.
Kwong Lee Never say no. Never say never.
Miles Thurlow I think we are at nine o'clock. Has anybody got any other any other questions at all. No, I think we're done. So thank you both so much. Thank you, Nina.
Nina Chua Thank you.
Miles Thurlow Your beautiful and arresting work. It's a real. It's a real joy just to look at it. To be honest. And thank you so much Kwong for your brilliant questions. You know, I really enjoyed listening to you boh.
Kwong Lee My pleasure.
Nina Chua Thank you.
Miles Thurlow As usual, it's been a really lovely evening. And thank you, everybody. All those people that have joined us. It's great to have such a strong audience and you know, all your questions and everything. We are going to be taking a little bit of a break. I am going to take a bit of I'm going to take a bit of a holiday for a couple of weeks.
Nina Chua Well deserved. Holiday.
Miles Thurlow And I will be in touch with you through the usual channels when we get back with our next conversation.
I think this is something we want to keep going throughout. So thanks, everyone. I'll say goodbye. I'll try and find the leave button where is it, here we go Yes. End meeting. OK. Bye, everyone.
Kwong Lee Bye.
Nina Chua Bye
