Natia Ser
Chicago, IL
www.natiaser.com
IG: @arkaaive
Meet me at your fingertips
2023
Sand and stones from Saugatuck beach, water, inkjet on water-soluble paper, inkjet on paper, inkjet on waterproof cloth paper, book board, book cloth.
12 x 3 x 16 in (opens to 24 x 3 x 16 in)
Artist Statement
As a Hong Kong-born artist who has been living in the U.S. for 5 years, I explore signs of intimacy that exist in temporal itinerant living through artist books to investigate the ambivalence longing and belonging. My interest in water is informed by my superstitious Chinese mother who believes that the water element poses a danger to my life as indicated by its absence in my Chinese horoscope chart—a notion I approach with compliance and transgression.
In December 2021, after having my fortune read for 2022, she called from home and instructed me to minimize outdoor ventures, particularly to the north-east of my Chicago apartment—which by coincidence, points at the shores of Lake Michigan. After more than a year of complying to her request, I packed my bags and spent the summer of 2023 in Saugatuck, Michigan—the epicentre of my mother’s restriction. In Saugatuck, contrary to my mother’s beliefs, I connected with the natural environment and found peace and tranquility in different forms of water: puddles, ponds, rivers and of course—Lake Michigan, but from the other side.
When I returned to Chicago, I decided to share this rejuvenating experience through Meet me at your fingertips, an interactive artist book in which viewers are invited to participate in a meditative and playful exchange with a Zen garden by raking water patterns on sand and rearranging stones with their fingers (both components were collected from a beach in Saugatuck). They can then rinse off their sandy fingers in a bowl of water, before dripping the water residues on a water-soluble image of a bubble that would eventually dissolve to reveal ripples. The subsequent acts of destroying and revealing in the two steps would thus reflect my transgression of a curious and tender exploration of the forbidden realm of water. The exterior of the clamshell box shows one continuous pattern, carved into the book board, that runs from the back cover through the spine to the front cover. Referencing the raking patterns in Zen gardens, it symbolizes a stream of water to suggest a continuous flow as my prompt to viewers to participate in the raking with their fingers on the inside.
This book, like most of my other books, is meant to be activated by the audience. By inviting the audience to touch the same surfaces of an object that I previously handmade and/or handbound with care, we engage in a private, intimate exchange that transcends time and space. This interaction contributes to the recurring motif of tactility in my practice—whether as a subject, printing material or the object that I commingle my images with. It is informed by a playfulness and curiosity associated with the childishness that I was barred from during my strict Chinese upbringing which I now challenge. It also signals the intimacy and tenderness that I hope to offer and desire, yet fear, from a distant, departed home representing both affection and restriction.