Moses Tan
Carless whispers
Moses Tan’s set of ten drawings was initially conceived as part of a multimedia installation work borrowed intimacies (2020), in which the artist explored queer desires and the contradiction of coming out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing allegories and abstraction, the drawings visualize the symbol of the closet as a glass box in communion with nature. As a field guide to queer ecology, the drawings also allude to cruising and reference queer codes in Asia, such as the chrysanthemum flower, and beyond. The year 2020 was marked by Tan’s parents who finally accepted his homosexuality. Although the content in the glass box is no longer a secret, the feelings and experiences inside the closet are still ever present.
Moses Tan’s work explores histories that intersect with queer theory and politics while looking at melancholia and shame as points of departure. Working with drawing, video, and installation, Tan’s interests lie in the use of subtlety and codes in the articulation of narratives. Tan’s sculptural exploration considers the agency of queer individuals within institutional structures wherein heteronormativity takes center stage. Influenced by queer inhumanisms and the notion of the body as an allegorical landscape, the works are responses to the corporeal body, queerness, and abstraction.