Sophie Teh

I’m Sophie Teh, I’m a painter and installation artist. In many aspects of my life, not just art, I am a late bloomer. I became an artist later in life and I consider myself largely self-taught. My interest lies in cultural perception and friction. For example, my recent work draws analogies between our attitudes to food and our physical bodies with other phenomena around socio-cultural friction.

I used to think that the Chinese were uniquely obsessed with food and identified themselves through what they eat. Of course, this is not true because many cultures also take their food very seriously. For example, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the French epicure said, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” Much of the Chinese’s food obsession is linked to a long and complicated history of famine. Thus, the availability of food is associated with all things good and the celebration of the continuation of life.
In relationships with food, I also observe new food attitudes that stem from consumerism (like supersizing) or biohacking (like fasting) that operate beyond the confines of tradition. Food, within or beyond culture, is so universal yet at the same time loaded with cultural, social and emotional connotations. I explore the appeal of food and the act of eating, driven by separate motives to talk about different topics ranging from ambition to sexism.

Sausages are essentially chains, and to put it perversely, chains of meat encased in intestines. The cultural normalisation of such a strange food concept is fascinating to me. The sausages’ oblong bloated forms are incredibly versatile in three dimensions.
In Killing Time, I was looking for a painting medium that was different from the flat canvas surface to narrate my childhood in Malaysia. I wanted a form that conveyed the flow of time, of progression and sequence that brought to mind the passing of time. The sausage form was what I felt worked. Secondly, I linked the process of stuffing sausages to the act of sacrificing the present for the sake of future gratification, which was what I did in the 1980s as part of my childhood.
In Objects of Desire, the sausage form is more literal. I made life-sized sausages to display in a shop window to represent the objectification of Asian women, like food in Chinese restaurant windows.

When I moved to London about 20 years ago, I sought change. The main differences I noticed within a short time of living in Europe were that I had access to wider economic opportunities and more independence. In other words, the differences I was sensitive to at the time were socio-economic. My perspective on Asian culture only changed in a meaningful way during the pandemic and with the Stop Asian Hate movement. The series of events at that time helped me connect with other Asian artists and thinkers, and to embrace my culture more strongly. It created a desire to express my cultural experiences in my work.

I probably started the gradual process of moving away from making art at around 7 years old when I started formal schooling. At the time, I didn’t know it was possible to pursue a career as an artist. A few years ago, I felt a burning platform beneath me. Acknowledging for the first time that my time and energy are not unlimited, I decided to take charge of my life to give my first passion in life a serious go. I recall this was after I met a family friend who was a contemporary of my grandfather’s. He started painting after retirement and achieved success in his 70s. My late grandfather was also a good painter but did not take his pursuit beyond a hobby. The urgency I felt then was strong enough to push me to give up my old attachments and certainties to return to art.

The spa shootings in Atlanta in 2021 were a tragic moment that highlighted the extent to which some men viewed Asian women as things. I made Objects of Desire in reaction to this incident to draw attention to the theme of exploitation, giving it visibility. When I started thinking about making the installation, I wanted something visually provocative and outlandish to draw attention to the experience of being objectified. I also wanted to focus on the act of objectification rather than the victim or the perpetrator to draw attention to microaggressions that support other more serious acts of aggression, like a pyramid. The sausage was a useful representative tool.

Part of the role art plays is to make complex topics accessible, and the artist should, in my opinion, be as involved as their work. I make work which I like talking about and try not to be intentionally enigmatic. Furthermore, the self-stereotyping of Asians as not inclined to rock the boat or speak up has eroded, in my opinion, from what I have seen in my own circles in recent years.

I am really happy to finally see this happening in film and television and cannot wait to see more to come. I was thrilled that Everything Everywhere All At Once, released this year, has been a critical and commercial success. In the arts, I think Chinese artists like Ai Wei Wei and Caí Guo Qiang have achieved superstar levels of success and are already household names. They belong to an elite group of Asian artists who are mostly male.
According to the National Museum of Women in The Arts, male Asian artists make up eight per cent of works represented in major United States art museums. So, there is some representation of male Asian artists. I would love to see female Asian visual artists gain a similar level of recognition; exciting work is being made by this group.

I am by no means a lone practitioner working on an agenda that is unique. I look at my work as part of a collective of artists all working towards the same social goals and encouraging one another even though we might not be officially associated. I am still in the early stage of my career, but an interesting thought came to my mind the other day about legacy. Because of our capabilities to make content on the internet, all artists essentially do not need an agent of representation in the traditional sense. We are all capable of creating and shaping our own legacies for future audiences. In other words, our work can still be discovered beyond our lifetimes. I do not need to do what is fashionable at this time. This has shaped how I think about the work I create and how I curate it. I would like to be remembered as being an artist who deals with cultural topics through unexpected humour and with a long and interesting career.

My work is in the realm of examining misreadings and alternative cultural perceptions. There is a strong element of play in my ideas along with experimentation. Inherently what I make is not aimed at uplifting identities. I don’t think my work at the moment goes beyond my own cultural experience – perhaps it does indirectly. Also, in 10 years, when I have a body of work in this area, it would be easier to speak retrospectively on my contribution to the topic of modern Chinese/Southeast Asian Identity.

I think it is important for the sake of diversity of thought and opinion. What art could potentially be, and the stories it could tell, would be richer with more representation of not just Asian artists but artists from all backgrounds. I think there is an appetite for different voices in the arts, more so now than ever before.
If I were to be more specific about Asian representation, personally, I would like more opportunities to learn more about my own culture and history through the arts. I admit I do not know enough about Chinese and Malaysian culture and history myself and there are many things the arts can teach me through its magical ways.