You Are the Softest Touch from Afar, 5

Sammi Mak

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In some paintings Sammi Mak will paint all the way to the border, creating immersion. Take the molecular magnificence of ‘Mist’ or the substance of ‘Chaos’. In both paint registers the imprint of feeling, transversing the canvas like weather. With delicacy, through a restrained but vibrant palette, the painter gives an atmosphere’s chemical pigmentation. In this respect they specifically recollect the super-temporality of Anselm Kiefer’s nature paintings. 

 In some works – of oil and watercolour on ‘Somerset soft velvet paper’ – the emphasis is horizontal. In one sense the whirling meeting place of brush with paint is not constrained by literal or linear representation – though there is much velocity to the direction of the brushwork. The paper gives an effect of softness: a transient scrolling. In fact, their horizontal inscriptions recall antique painting scrolls; these particular works by Sammi Mak could be read from left to right. 

The titles of these paintings are bridges through the air: not necessarily leading anywhere, but providing some footing. Blank spaces of canvas will be left, suggesting there is more to be seen, felt or done: an active participation by the viewer is invited. One of the most exquisite landscapes in the history of Japanese art is ‘Cracked Ice’ by Maruyama Okyo, which shows with naturalistic minimalism – a few strokes of black ink across the white canvas –  the scene of ice breaking up. As in Mak’s work, the painterly is foregrounded, the brushwork – and all that it evokes – deployed lightly, with ceremonial precision.