A Popeye Story

Assignment brief: Choose an artwork in STPI’s exhibition ‘Pae White: Friendship is Magic’ and prepare a short catalogue entry, with text of 200 words or less.

Pae White (b.1963, Pasadena, California, based in Los Angeles)
A Popeye Story

2018
Laser cut paper with lettuce insert

Dimensions:
Numbers - 
Opened Size: 23 x 229 cm
Closed Size: 23 x 23 x 1.3 cm
Edition of 2

PW19-25

Dimensions:
Numbers - 
Opened Size: 23 x 229 cm
Closed Size: 23 x 23 x 1.3 cm
Edition of 2

A Popeye Story expands on White’s practice of collaborative creation and chance experimentation with unorthodox mediums. Transforming biodegradable, quotidian materials like mulberry paper and lettuce into permanent handicraft, White explores the magic of change and blurs the distinctions between solidity and fragility, high and low art.

The three-dimensional accordion book invites viewers to walk around opened folds and appreciate the overlooked beauty of nature. White frames lettuce leaves within the silhouettes of laser cut numbers, illuminating their veins, hues, and translucent pigments. This composition allows light in, which is suggestive of stained-glass windows and photosynthesis. 

White’s choice of store-bought lettuce reflects her immersion in Singapore and propensity to innovate techniques with STPI’s team during her residency in 2018. Her penchant for humour throughout her oeuvre is evident in the ironic title, which references spinach-eating American cartoon sailor, Popeye. The incongruity between text and image also encourages viewers to have a good laugh.

The firm binding and upright orientation of A Popeye Story resists its medium’s delicacy, suggesting how balance and strength is achievable through unity and novelty. This prompts us to view the unforeseen with resilience and optimism, a timely reminder as we reemerge into a post-pandemic world riddled with precariousness.