Jolene Liam
Jolene Liam, a Singapore-born, London-based artist and architect, is pushing the boundaries of what drawing can be. With a background in creating intricate architectural maquettes and detailed line drawings, the past seven years have seen Jolene boldly venture into looser realms, experimenting with the very definition of drawing itself. Her innovative practice, which blurs the boundaries between drawing and sculpture, has garnered acclaim, earning commendations from the prestigious RIBA Journal and shortlist nominations for the coveted Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, Art Gemini Prize, and World Illustration Awards. Through her exploration of unconventional materials and techniques, such as drawing with string and Jesmonite or painting on the reverse side of canvases, Jolene invites us to reimagine the spaces we inhabit and the objects we collect as expressions of our identities, habits, and personalities.
Jolene Liam in Studio, 2024. Photo Courtesy: Kwame Boakye.
Jolene Liam's roots trace back to Singapore, where she was born and raised before relocating to London twelve years ago. Her mother hails from Singapore, while her father, born in Johor, Malaysia, later moved to Singapore in the 1970s.
Art has been an integral part of Jolene's life from her earliest memories, with numerous childhood photos capturing her engrossed in the act of drawing. As the eldest of three siblings, she drew and read extensively to keep herself entertained.
Her father, an architect by training, surrounded her with his abstract paintings of houses, igniting her passion for the field. However, Jolene attributes her love (and patience) for meticulously drawing objects to her mother – they would spend countless hours together creating paper dolls and designing intricate outfits for them.
While Jolene's artistic inclinations were nurtured and encouraged from a young age, her exposure to the broader art world was limited. Apart from a few Paul Klee prints adorning their home, a nod to her father's favourite artist, she doesn't recall being surrounded by much of other people's art. Singapore's art scene in the 90s and early 2000s was relatively nascent, with few museums or galleries accessible during her formative years.
Jolene Liam, Singapore Quarry, 2024. Oil Pastel on Paper, 59 x 42 cm. Photo Courtesy: Jaclyn Liam
Jolene's artistic pursuits continued through her academic journey, as she studied art in school until the age of 18. However, her focus shifted to architecture when she embarked on her degree programme. Despite this transition, her artistic inclinations persisted, manifesting through the technical drawings, sketches, and architectural models she created during her studies and professional practice.
Jolene Liam, In My Canvas Room, 2023. Acrylic and Monotype on Canvas, 60 x 80 x 8cm. Photo Courtesy: Jolene Liam
Jolene Liam, In My Canvas Room, 2023. Acrylic and Monotype on Canvas, 60 x 80 x 8cm. Photo Courtesy: Jolene Liam
Jolene’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in the various spaces she calls home, drawing inspiration from her flat in London, her family's home in Singapore, and her grandmother's house in the same city. Her work is an exploration of rediscovering and reinterpreting the familiar landscapes of Singapore, with a particular fascination for urban natural spaces and the personalised in-between realms, such as the corridor gardens found in Singapore's public housing flats.
Jolene's creativity is fuelled by a diverse range of sources, including maps, collected objects like rocks, patterned textiles, and Polly Pocket dollhouses. The Polly Pocket dollhouses serve as an interesting metaphor within her work – miniature spaces that can be opened and closed, allowing her to explore and convey certain feelings about each place. Her family home in Singapore and her flat in London are two places she splits her time between each year, and the act of packing up and putting away these spaces, both physically and emotionally, as she transitions between them, informs her thoughts around home, nostalgia, childhood, memories, and migration.
Her artistic journey has been shaped by the guidance of recent teachers and mentors, such as Annie Cattrell and Katherine Jones at the Essential School of Painting, and Grant Foster at Turps Art School, as well as the influence of fellow artists from diverse backgrounds.
Furthermore, Jolene draws inspiration from the Singaporean art scene, particularly the works of Chua Ek Kay, appreciating the way he leaves negative space in his paintings, and Georgette Chen, a pivotal figure in modern Singaporean art. In Chen's work, Jolene resonates with the artist's approach of drawing inspiration from the ordinary moments and spaces that surrounded her daily life. She enjoys the way Chen's compositions strike a delicate balance, closely cropping objects or landscapes while simultaneously allowing for ample breathing room within the frame. The 'empty' spaces within Chen's paintings are treated with equal care and consideration as the 'non-empty' areas, a quality that echoes with Jolene's artistic sensibilities.
Jolene Liam, Little Studio Box, 2023. Ink on IKEA Box, 10 x 10 x 5 cm. Photo Courtesy: Jolene Liam
In recent times, Jolene has been driven by a desire to "unlearn" the architectural training that once shaped her practice. This pursuit has led her to experiment with diverse materials and embrace a more liberating and spontaneous approach to her creative process. While drawing remains the bedrock of her work, Jolene's artistic journey has undergone a transformative evolution.
Initially, her focus centred on creating intricate ink drawings that probed the gaps between various modes of architectural representation. However, today, Jolene's approach is marked by a more intuitive and improvisational spirit, as she strives to draw from and simultaneously challenge her architectural background. Rather than beginning with a predetermined image to execute, she works swiftly and with minimal premeditation, allowing the drawing or painting to unfold organically.
This shift in approach is often facilitated by unconventional techniques, such as painting with her eyes closed or utilising brushes attached to long sticks. These methods enable Jolene to relinquish a degree of control and prevent the creation of faithful copies from source materials. The process of initiating a new project varies depending on the setting; when drawing on location, the chosen environment—be it a park, garden, urban area, or even films and galleries—becomes the guiding force, while her studio work is led by her intuition and current areas of interest.
Jolene's practice encompasses a diverse array of mediums, including ink, pencil, oil pastel, monotypes with oil paint and etching ink, acrylic paint, and materials like string and jesmonite. Initially dominated by black and white ink drawings, her work has now embraced a broader range of techniques and a vibrant colour palette, incorporating joyful hues of pinks, purples, and blues, adding a new dimension to her ever-evolving body of work.
Jolene Liam, Nap in the Park, 2024. Acrylic on Bedsheet, 210 x 180 cm. Photo Courtesy: Jolene Liam
In her work Glasshouse Gardens Walking Map, Jolene examines how spaces can be depicted from an experiential perspective rather than as a single image. She creates walking maps of the places she has visited, pausing at regular intervals to document the sights on either side of her path. By blending these multiple views into a continuous loop, she aims to capture the essence of each location. This method of documenting her experiences offers a unique reflection on how we perceive and interact with nature in botanical gardens and conservatories. These spaces, which often require intricate systems to maintain and house plants removed from their natural environments, present a curated version of nature. Jolene’s drawings highlight that our experience of nature in these settings is always influenced by the designs of their creators.
Jolene Liam, Glasshouse Gardens Walking Map (2023) Ink on Paper, 30 x 42 cm. Photo Courtesy: Jolene Liam
The bed is a recurring site in Jolene's work. In Duvet Dance, she explains, "The way people sleep and occupy a bed is like a fingerprint—something everyone does, yet it remains highly individual and personal.” Duvet Dance maps out the nightly negotiations and adjustments that occur when sharing a bed with someone else, symbolising the broader experience of sharing life and space with a partner and the ongoing quest for meaningful connections and relationships.
Jolene creates these pieces by laying them flat on the floor, dipping string in Jesmonite, and drawing with it. Often, it’s hard to see the work during the process because the Jesmonite gets everywhere. She enjoys the moment of peeling them off when dry to reveal the result, akin to developing film photos. She is also captivated by the concept of a drawing that exists without a traditional surface and stands alone, moving the art from the page into a standalone object with its own presence.
Jolene Liam, Duvet Dance, 2023. String and Jesmonite, 200 x 150cm. Exhibition installation photo, Songs of Love, Death and Desire, Proposition Camden, March 2024. Photo Courtesy: Crispian Blaize.
Toss and Turn exemplifies Jolene's ongoing exploration of intimate gestures and movements within the bed's private realm. Her curiosity goes beyond subject matter and looks at the artworks' construction and materiality through the incorporation of found objects like second-hand bed sheets.
Jolene is fascinated by how these repurposed materials, when employed as artistic mediums, can transform the viewer's experience of a painting. She contemplates the role of classification in distinguishing art from non-art objects, and how categorising a work as a "painting" can profoundly shape its perception.
In her process, Jolene embraces a gestural approach, tapping into muscle memory while resisting the urge to cover the entire surface. This deliberate restraint allows for negative space and breathing room, inviting the viewer to engage with the work's physicality and materiality.
Jolene Liam, Toss and Turn, 2023. Acrylic on Bedsheet, 180 x 210 cm. Exhibition installation photo, Turps Off-Site Programme Show, Thames-Side Studios Gallery, May 2024. Photo Courtesy: Kwame Boakye (@learnmoveteachsmile)
Jolene will be opening her studio doors for the public as part of Proposition Summer Open studios event on June 15th, 2024, from 2 pm to 7 pm. Additionally, she will be participating in an upcoming group exhibition titled Here There Be Monsters, alongside fellow artists Sarah Barker Brown, Benedict Johnson, Gill Roth, and Kika Sroka-Miller.
The exhibition will be held at Safehouse 1 in Peckham, from June 27th to 30th, 2024. The intriguing title, Here There Be Monsters, is derived from the phrase "Here Be Dragons," which was historically used on medieval maps to indicate uncharted territories. In this exhibition, the "monsters" serve as a metaphor for the uncharted and unknown realms of painting.
The five artists in this exhibition aim to redefine their understanding of limits and explore the possibilities of arriving at new destinations within the realm of painting. Through their diverse approaches, they aim to challenge conventional boundaries and invite viewers to embark on a journey of discovery, where the unknown becomes a source of artistic exploration and innovation.
To learn more about Jolene Liam, connect via Instagram or visit her website.
Annette Fernando
Emerging Artist Co-Editor, MADE IN BED