CityLife

Interview: Sarah Tse

Sarah Tse's work is being displayed at the Chinese Arts Centre

BEFORE Sarah Tse left her native China for the UK seven years ago to study A-levels overseas, she had never considered becoming an artist.

“I thought I would be doing economics and business studies in university,” she remembers.

“However, once I took art A-levels, I was totally absorbed in the art world and I decided to do art for my career.

“I was the first artist in my family. In the Chinese tradition, children study art mostly because they can not do law, economics or ­medicine.

“So when I decided to do art, everyone was so shocked.

“But I worked so hard in high school. My parents came over to see my A-level graduation exhibition and they were very impressed; they agreed for me to do Fine Art at Central Saint Martins.”

During her degree, Sarah perfected the skill that is now making her a well respected contemporary artist.

Her drawings, mostly in pencil on paper, are exquisitely detailed and play with childhood notions of fantasy, imagination and scale.

'Escape from reality'

“My work is about escapism, or could be described as a rearrangement of visual languages,” explains Sarah.

“We always hear people say, ‘Oh, I want to go back to childhood so I don’t have to go to work’. In our mind, childhood is innocent, no pressure, we can totally forget about society and play around.

“Actually ‘childhood’ does not exist; it is just a state where human beings can escape from reality.”

It is, though, a place in which racoons, robots and cream teas can cohabit, creating a beautiful, dreamlike assembly of reminders of our youth.

“My work is also about contradictions: big and small, innocent and erotic, soft fluffy and hard, natural and manmade or industrial.

“I was investigating Japanese porn culture in my practice a year ago. Japanese people admire ‘Kawaii’-ism (meaning cute) very much: they surround themselves with cute kitsch accessories, dress up like dolls, pose in pigeon toes, talk in baby voices.

“Some adult videos are in the cartoon style.

“They feel very disturbing though they are only a cartoon, and this is because there is a tension between innocence and erotism in the videos. I want to capture this tension in my own practice.

'Playful and relaxed'

“I want to combine many innocent, dreamlike objects to create a very subtly erotic and disturbing ambience in my work.”

For her Chinese Arts Centre show, Sarah is bringing a number of pencil and collage works but she is also drawing a large piece on the gallery walls.

“The wall drawing is inspired by Chinese toys in the1980s. This is my first time including Chinese elements in my work, though I am Chinese,” says Sarah. “I’ve combined old Chinese toys to become a huge circus show.

“The whole drawing is huge, but there are also very fine small details in some parts of the work.

“I didn't want to do an erotic theme, instead I wanted to do something playful and relaxed.

“Drawing on a wall is like dreams: powerful and beautiful but temporary.

“I do feel very upset when my wall drawing is being painted over, but I am sure it will last forever in my viewers’ minds.

“I enjoy drawing on wall as it is edgeless, and it forces viewers to engage in my work efficiently.”

From January 9 until May 9 (2010) at Chinese Arts Centre, Thomas Street (Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm). Free.