paris nues

"the brocade strings and reeds weave daily music,
half of it with the clouds, half river breezes:
for music such as this was meant for heaven,
how many times is man allowed to hear it?"
[TU FU, 761 AD]

les nues du soir

"from the south sea did a guest appear
and give to me a mermaid's tear
and in that pearl there were cloudy signs:
I tried to unfurl what lay in those lines;"
[TU FU, 796]

pleine lune

ferry me across the dark distance to this solitary pearl -
so still, so far...
in the full umbra of the alabaster moon, glowing pale fire, mild passions are smuggled and obscured for later disbursement...
on some other night when the moon hangs low again over the next reclaimed isle, softly lighting the steps down to the cimmerian sea.

[from 'once upon an alabaster moon' by g.verster, 2005]

la porte ottomane

an aeolian howl reverberates in the courtyard, rattles the portal doors...
a wisp of paper, leaf, soul brushes against the shutters, providently, just once...
a being in a darkened eyrie contemplates impromptu sounds through the wordless night...
stringendo compositions of derelict noise spiraling aloft...
...brushes up again...
continental elements held together by an unseen extempore force...
still out there fiercely corralling pieces of intangibility...
soon to disconnect and escape, air distrait in the morning light.

['a november wind' by g.verster, 2004]

orangerie [parc andré-citroen]

orangerie [parc andré-citroen]
oil and acrylic on canvas; 75 x 100 cm

one of two glasshouse pavilions on the former site of the citroen automobile factory, now transformed into a hyper-rigid designed park on the south west flank of paris [patrick berger, gilles clément, jean-paul viguier, allain provost, jean-françois jodry et associés (1992-3)]
the exotic plant "temples" showcase a collection of tropical specimens, some of which brings me right back to the wild jungles of borneo...

monument tpm

monument tpm

oil and acrylic on canvas; 90 x 120 cm

"This monument is erected by the people of Jesselton to the founding of Malaysia on 16th September 1963"...engraved on the plaque of this monument designed by my father and sponsored by the North Borneo Chinese Asssociation and the Jesselton Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

[Jesselton is now known as Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of the state of Sabah, one of the two states of East Malaysia on the northern half of the island of Borneo]

*structuralambiguity::

::the obscuration of an exterior wall by the tenacious willingness of vertically challenged plants to bond, survive and flourish against all odds, [thereby gracing the building envelope to encompass more than a uni-faceted function...]

[location:: Musée du Quai Branly, a new museum exhibiting primitive art and artifacts from non-European cultures, designed by Jean Nouvel (2005-07), and the "Mur Végétal" by Patrick Blanc (2007) on Quai Branly, 75007 Paris]

*from ZY-XIN's ZYGOSPHERIC HYBRIDARCHITECTURAL TERMINOLOGY

[originally published in the september/october, 2007 issue of FRONT journal of contemporary art and ideas]

*ornamentalisentropy::

::the adornment of a 17th century ceiling with segmented owl body parts composed into a gleeful montage as a measure of the ever devolving degradation of the wholesome natural world...

[location:: Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, a museum dedicated to the hunt and to nature in the Hôtel de Guénégaud designed by François Mansart (1652-55), Rue des Archives, 75003 Paris]

*from ZY-XIN's ZYGOSPHERIC HYBRIDARCHITECTURAL TERMINOLOGY

[originally published in the september/october 2007 issue of front journal of contemporary art and ideas]