It’s always interesting to see how an artist, who usually uses one medium, in this case animation, adapts to using a completely new one. Young Japanese Tabaimo has quickly made a name for herself on the international circuit, with her surreal and strangely beautiful film animations. In 2007, she made a splash at the Venice Biennale with dolefullhouse, featuring giant hands arranging doll house furniture before starting to frantically scratch walls to reveal bleeding human flesh. In 2008, her second solo exhibition in NY featured public convenience, a three screen work set in a spacious restroom reminiscent of a train station where strange things start to happen, like a women diving into a toilet or another one giving birth through a nostril. Her new work at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (opening tomorrow) is very personal, disturbing and beautiful at the same time. The artist suffered from severe dermatitis and her afflicted hands used to impede her art-making, a sensation she describes as insects crawling under her skin. She’s adapted those feeling with vein and insects layout on paper, creating bizarre textured paper evocative of bruised skin and lacerated wallpaper. It is a macabre world, but aesthetically a beautiful, poetic one.
