Dawn Flight by Vancouver artist Carmen Tome. Mixed media photograph, 2003.

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The Hebrew words Eesh and Ishsha were used in Genesis for the man and the woman - the apple of His eye, “marvellous,…skilfully wrought” as the Psalmist declares.

As a figurative painter, the human, has long been the preferred choice of my artistic focus. I choose to work almost exclusively with live models firstly because of the intricate, captivating beauty of the human anatomy. St. Augustine so aptly expressed, “The arrangement of the body is so well proportioned, the symmetry of its parts so beautiful that it can be doubted whether at its creation utility was more of a determining factor than beauty.” I could not agree more.

I am also fascinated by the endearing imagery of the apple, which in old English represented the pupil of the eye. The Hebrew text offers a picture of the diminutive image of a man reflected in the pupil, that most tender and carefully guarded part of God’s eye. It seems we are singularly held in the gaze of God and I have a suspicion that in the activity of painting, I am also being schooled in the sacred art of gazing. Regardless of whether my models are ones who commissioned me for portraiture or professionals who posed for a fee, they have extended much graciousness in permitting me to study them long and intensely. For, in that process, they perhaps risk allowing some hints of their inner sanctum to be interpreted by me and revealed on the canvas.

Recently, a friend asked me when it was I became aware of my inclination towards Art. My recollection would put me back to the days when I first applied pencil to paper and I scratched a few marks that resembled human beings. Through my formative years, my desire had been to one day attend Art School and run towards that life-drawing studio. At the end of the foundation year, I made a decision that I have long regretted: I chose to pursue my training in Graphic Design. After my graduation, for various reasons, all my artistic endeavours came to a halt and I turned away from Art for the next twenty-eight years. It slowly dawned on me that I was like the unprofitable servant in the gospel of St. Matthew, who for fear buried in the earth the one talent entrusted to him by his Master.

1998 marked my re-entry into the making of Art. With effort, I first sought to regain the knowledge of form through stone sculpture in workshops under Alberto Raplenski and through three-dimensional clay studies on the human anatomy under Santo Mignosa and David Robinson. In the subsequent two years I attended several workshops in figurative studies using mainly charcoal and later colours taught by Michael Britton, Paul Chizik and Thomas Anfield at the Vancouver Academy of Art. I was to discover in oil another medium suitable for expression. Simultaneously I wanted to clarify my thoughts on the spiritual implications of my vocation as an artist. I enrolled as a part-time student at Regent College in 2001 to be mentored by Maxine Hancock and with Dal Schindell for a term of Guided Study. It was an enriching experience.
I did retrieve the one talent from the ground and it is being re-invested.

— Grace W. S. Tan <www.gracewstan.com>