Too Much, Too Empty (2019)

Clouds have long occupied the backgrounds of religious paintings, surrounding sacred figures and filling the spaces between heaven and earth. Rarely the central subject, they nevertheless contribute to an atmosphere in which the unseen might be imagined. What happens to these clouds when the divine figures are removed, leaving only the space once occupied by spiritual presence?

Extending his investigations into the relationship between objects, spirituality and everyday life, Seah developed Too Much, Too Empty around a contradiction of contemporary existence: while daily schedules, physical environments and digital systems become increasingly crowded, the space for contemplation and spiritual imagination may be diminishing.

Drawing from cloud formations in religious imagery, Seah developed an abstract visual language of intertwining, drifting and fragmented forms. Rather than predetermining their appearance, he allowed images to emerge through repeated acts of painting and etching on copper. The process involved both accumulation and subtraction, gradually revealing ambiguous shapes that suggest movement, bodily traces and imagined presences without resolving into recognisable figures.

Copper remained central to the series, extending his earlier interest in the material's historical associations with religious objects and its sensitivity to environmental change. Through selective oxidation, Seah allowed the metal to record the passage of time. The irreversible transformation of its surface became a reminder of mortality, where change and deterioration are not necessarily conditions to resist, but processes through which another understanding of beauty might emerge.

Each painting carries two titles. The English titles refer to meteorological cloud classifications, including Cumulus, Asperitas and Mammatus, while the Chinese titles evoke gestures or psychological states, such as 翻 (turning), 波 (waves) and 沉 (sinking). The pairing places scientific classification alongside subjective interpretation, allowing the same forms to move between observation and imagination.

In the four-panel work Cloud: Please Update the System, the cloud acquires another meaning: the digital cloud, an apparently limitless space for storing information, memories and imagined futures. Yet technological systems require continuous updates, generating new demands even as they promise to resolve existing limitations. The work reflects on the anxiety of constant adaptation, where the pursuit of progress may become an endless cycle.

The installation Capsule brings these concerns into physical space. Referencing the space capsule, capsule hotel and medicinal capsule, Seah constructed a compact, single-person enclosure using wood and etched copper. Its exterior echoes the gallery's wooden flooring, while the interior is lined with cloud-like copper surfaces. The structure proposes a temporary sanctuary, questioning whether a space designed for bodily containment might also offer relief from psychological emptiness.

In contrast to the increasingly screen-mediated experience of contemporary life, Capsule requires the viewer's physical presence. It invites an encounter through the body and senses, where imagination is activated not through the accumulation of more information, but through occupying a limited space.

Too Much, Too Empty considers the paradox between material abundance and spiritual absence. Through clouds, copper and containers, the exhibition asks whether making room for uncertainty, imagination and sensory experience might offer another way of inhabiting a world that seems perpetually occupied.

Keywords: #Spirituality #MaterialCulture #Clouds #DigitalCulture #TimeAndMortality #MaterialTransformation #Contemplation #MakingAndUnmaking