Deluge Series

Deluge Series extends Seah's earlier exploration of comfort, confinement and uncertainty in Being Series, shifting his attention from individual psychological states towards the broader conditions of consumerism, material culture and social transformation.

The series emerged from observations of IKEA's growing presence in Malaysia and the aspirations associated with its affordable, self-assembled furniture and idealised domestic environments. Through its catalogues, IKEA presented carefully arranged images of contemporary living shaped largely by Scandinavian design. Yet the encounter between these imported domestic ideals and Malaysia's humid tropical environment raised questions about material durability, disposability and the changing relationships between consumption, local production and everyday life. The series also reflects on the pressures experienced by local furniture makers and the shifting value placed on manufacturing, manual labour and convenience.

Appropriating images of furnished interiors from IKEA catalogues, Seah reimagines these seemingly comfortable spaces as environments gradually overwhelmed by floodwaters. Rather than depicting a sudden catastrophe, the flood emerges as a slow and persistent force, infiltrating familiar surroundings and unsettling their apparent stability.

The drawings extend Seah's investigation into the conventions of drawing itself. Hatching, tentative lines, construction lines and other marks traditionally used to develop a coherent image are redirected towards its fragmentation and dissolution. Through repeated, intersecting black and white lines, domestic objects, architectural structures and spatial arrangements are simultaneously constructed and undone. Instead of concealing the processes through which an image is formed, the drawings expose them, allowing familiar interiors to remain partially recognisable yet structurally unresolved.

Colour is used sparingly as flat, unmodulated local colour, without tonal modelling, layering or additional variation. Scattered fragments of colour suggest the surface qualities of individual objects and provide occasional clues to their identity. They do not establish the overall atmosphere or visual structure of the work; these are shaped primarily through the accumulation, direction and interruption of lines. Plants appear to collapse, furnishings lose their solidity and carefully composed interiors gradually disintegrate.

Influenced by Zygmunt Bauman's concept of liquid modernity, Seah approaches the flood as a visual metaphor for the fluid and unstable conditions of contemporary society. Global economic and cultural transformations are understood not simply as external forces, but as gradual processes that enter domestic environments, reshape everyday expectations and challenge established ideas of comfort and permanence.

Through appropriation and the simultaneous processes of making and unmaking, Deluge Series questions the promises of stability, convenience and ideal living associated with consumerism. The domestic interior becomes a space where personal aspirations intersect with wider material, economic and social changes. Rather than presenting a complete image of destruction, the drawings reveal how seemingly secure environments can be continually constructed, transformed and destabilised.

Keywords: #MaterialCulture #Consumerism #Domesticity #Appropriation #LiquidModernity #DrawingLanguage #MakingAndUnmaking

- Selected Works of Deluge Series -

- Works exhibited in -

- Catalogue -