As part of Singapore Art Week 2018, Supernormal presents Berny Tan’s debut solo show, “Thought Lines”, which showcases 20 new embroideries. We had the opportunity of chatting with the artist about her negotiations with rule-based processes of making, the “quiet violence” of stitching, and the neuroses embedded in the intimate object. Thought Lines – Study #2, 2017 [Front] Artitute: While your embroidered compositions take on the rubric of rule-based minimalism, it is also tempered by your intuition and intimate contact with your objects. Do share with us more about your methods and processes. Berny Tan: Each one of my twenty studies was created with a set of rules in mind, and these rules actually emerged out of certain anxieties or thought patterns I recognised in myself – for example, the mechanics of overthinking and how one mentally labours over one issue, or the impulse for perfection and how that conflicts with the impossibility of perfection. I didn’t write these rules down until after I finished the embroidery, but I had a logic of stitching in my head that I would apply and tweak if necessary. Once the system was set, I could almost “mindlessly” stitch for hours at a time [...]
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