Cherrybomb

This painting is part of the series “Continuum (Automatic Itineraries)” which investigates the body not merely as a vessel for existence and consciousness, but also as a destination and a site of tension between competing meanings.

Inspired by the abstraction of the body through medical imaging, “Continuum” is an attempt at “knowing thyself”, or at least our physical selves, in a time when the rationalist quest for scientific understanding of the body becomes a substitute for actual bodily experience.

We have an idea about all of the parts, whether they are internal organs or visible parts, and this is shaped by our culture, which has bestowed symbolism and meaning on the parts of the body through long and intimate familiarity with them.

This series aims to pull back our understandings of body-concepts to a more visceral, phenomenological plane. It treads the borders of abstraction and surrealism (a constant theme that underlines Phang’s work) to upend conventional representations of our physical being.