| In a series of 25 beautiful surface designs, Joel Seah seduces the viewer with dynamic colors and luscious patterns. Produced both in the format of sample sheets and lengths of actual wallpaper, “Love Stories” is a tactile and visually stunning experience. However, upon closer inspection, the appearance of another dialogue begins to emerge. “Love Stories” is composed entirely from text. These are words that Seah has uttered to past boyfriends, lovers and partners in private and intimate exchange, but never aloud in the presence of company. |  |
Between the Lines – Steve Danzig
In a series of 25 beautiful surface designs, Joel Seah seduces the viewer with dynamic colors and luscious patterns. Produced both in the format of sample sheets and lengths of actual wallpaper, “Love Stories” is a tactile and visually stunning experience. However, upon closer inspection, the appearance of another dialogue begins to emerge.
“Love Stories” is composed entirely from text. These are words that Seah has uttered to past boyfriends, lovers and partners in private and intimate exchange, but never aloud in the presence of company. The ideas that frame this body of work as it relates to visibility/invisibility and the problematic location of gay discourses in the contemporary social landscape are succinctly presented with wit, humor and a compassionate understanding.
Phrases such as “If I loved you,” “You are the reason,” “You’ll always be,” and “Time flies when I’m with you” allude to the emotional and psychological housing that occurs when speech has to be closeted. As Seah creates and charts the hypothetical domestic objects of his romantic failures, he seems to become more aware of the nature of displacement with regards to cultural norms.
Seah demonstrates the depth of his studio practice with clear nods to feminist and post-queer strategies. Drawing from the idea of constructing identity using the body as a site for contextual reconsideration and as an artifact for sociological and cultural readings, Seah is interested in proposing the continuum for these histories.
Queer theory today is faced with the challenge of repositioning the nature of an otherwise institutionalized, acclimatized and assimilated voice. That voice in “Love Stories” contemplates why such language needs to be still so discreetly disguised. Mimicking the tapestries and fabrics that covered the interiors of wealthy homesteads wallpaper as a decorative art finds its history in approximation. This is not unlike the main criticism of domestic partnership as an imitation of heterosexual marriage. By physically manufacturing these patterns, Seah has internalized this argument and responded with the quiet desire for making his own shelter a reality. That Seah has still yet to find this shelter offers the viewer a poignant glimpse into the humanizing attempts at that search for love. Each pattern was designed with the particular person it was spoken to, with the hypothetical space it could have occupied in mind.
Even with this degree of specificity, “Love Stories” remains remarkably accessible for viewers, regardless of their sexual orientation. Beyond reading the work in terms of history and critical theory, Seah reminds us that companionship is a basic human need and the relationships that pair bond us all are ultimately rooted in commonality rather than difference.
