At first glance, the works of Sabahan artist Tresyah Join may feel wild, even chaotic – but look closer, and a quiet order emerges.
Her signature technique involves cutting painted fragments of canvas and reassembling them onto a new surface, creating a jigsaw-like texture that draws the eye in and encourages closer inspection.
“Amid all of this, there’s actually order,” says Join in a recent interview at Rissim Contemporary in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.
“If I don’t like the look or feel of a piece, I’ll cover it up and adjust it until it feels right.”
Her first solo exhibition, Echoes Of Existence, is on view at the minimalist gallery until Sept 14.
Join, however, prefers the show’s Dusun-language title: Tullinggou Koposion, a reminder of the personal and cultural layers embedded in her practice.
Language plays an important role for Join – she speaks Dusun with her family and friends in Sabah, rich with nuance. In a KL gallery, it’s a different context, but she is always eager to share the stories behind her work.
Join explains that “tullinggou” means “echo”, much like the resonating sound of a gong, and “koposion” means “life” or “existence”.
“But there’s a depth of meaning in these words that are hard to translate into another language,” she adds.
Join, 27, hails from Ranau, Sabah, and is of Dusun Liwan descent. Creativity runs in her family: her mother is a skilled craftsperson, and her father a carver, a lineage that has clearly shaped her own artistic sensibilities.
Just like the show’s title, the artworks on display also include a nod to her heritage: each one has a name in the Dusun language, such as Lumaag Masangan Lahaan, or Autumn’s Benediction and Sorundung Dit Au Akito, or Veil Of The Unseen.
Layer by layer
In Echoes Of Existence, Join shows her canvas skills in 15 semi-abstract landscapes in oil and collage. The works explore the balance between order and chaos, nature and society, and perfection and imperfection, while reflecting on memory, emotions, and personal growth.
Raised surrounded by the lush greenery of her hometown Ranau (the district where Mount Kinabalu is located), Join’s connection to nature comes through effortlessly in her work. Her pieces often feature jungle backdrops, where vibrant foliage emerges from her distinctive collaging technique, reflecting both her environment and her layered approach to storytelling.
She also makes the canvas fragments herself, cutting up discarded works by hand. Each piece is then carefully layered onto a new canvas, combined with different types of paint to create the textures and effects she envisions.
“It might sound tedious to some, but the repetitive process has a calming effect on me, almost like meditation. It’s perfect for someone like me, with so many thoughts and emotions running through my head,” says Join, who paints at her home in Sentul, KL.
Working layer by layer, she builds depth and dimension in her pieces, drawing viewers into the intricacies of her work.
In one, a cracked texture recalls a mural on a weathered building; in another, a watery tie-dye effect evokes the calm surface of a pond.
Her collaging technique, which she says “suits her perfectly”, came about by happenstance – or perhaps it was serendipity.
At the height of the Covid-19 lockdown, she was a Fine Arts student (majoring in painting) at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Shah Alam, Selangor chasing deadlines. Moving between the Klang Valley and Ranau, Join was often confined to government-sanctioned hotel rooms for quarantine, turning them into makeshift studios.
To work more quickly (“I was too impatient to wait for the oil paint to dry,” she adds), Join began cutting and collaging painted canvas pieces. This method developed into her signature style of layered shapes, colours, and textures, each retaining a hint of the original brushstrokes.
“When I was first developing this technique, it was during the pandemic and I had lost several members of my family. Working on it was also my way of processing what I was feeling and offered an emotional outlet,” says Join.
Moments to pause
As an artist who works instinctively, Join finds it a challenge to answer questions surrounding the meanings behind her works. She doesn’t really plan them out, but rather follows the dictates of her intuition.
“For example, in this show, each piece is an expression of my feelings, capturing my thoughts and emotions at the moment in time I was working on it. I tend to work on several pieces concurrently and jump between one piece to another, depending on my mood,” she explains.
Birds, along with other fauna like deer, fish, and butterflies, recur throughout her work, serving as symbols of movement, freedom, and the delicate interplay between nature and memory.
“People often ask me why, and honestly, it’s because I love the freedom that birds represent – the fluidity of their movements, unhampered by restrictions,” she shares.
At Rissim Gallery, visitors pause in quiet to appreciate the surfaces and tones of her works.
“Rather than making you feel scared or anxious, through my works, I hope people can feel at ease and want to embrace it. I also find that nature is the best teacher – I use it in my paintings as a metaphor for life, with the collages exploring the uncertainty and unpredictability of it all.”
That said, Join points out that she doesn’t think every artist needs to carry a big message in their works.
“I think it’s nice to simply enjoy art. I used to wonder if it was okay that my works don’t really have a powerful story behind them, but then I realised that many artists started painting as a way to express themselves, and it’s the same for me.
“As an artist, the most important part is to create; whether or not people can understand or relate to my works, that’s up to them,” she shares.
As she takes us on an impromptu tour of the exhibition, Join admits that she finds it hard to know when to stop working on a piece.
“When I look at my artwork, they often feel unfinished to me. If I kept any of these at home, I think I’d simply keep adding to it,” she says with a laugh.
So how does she know when a piece is “finished”?
“When there’s a deadline,” she deadpans.
Echoes Of Existence is showing at Rissim Contemporary, Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur until Sept 14. Open Friday to Sunday, noon to 7pm. Instagram: @rissim_contemporary.
