Writing Toward Healing
N C L R ONLINE
63
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Existential View (oil on canvas, 30x24) by Malu Tan
You tell yourself there must have been a time without excuses bleached like grass beneath a bucket, a time without death cozying up behind you with a hard-on. You remember a spotted dog you once rescued, how you took her with you to the pasture as the sun palmed the hills, how gently she touched her nose to the nose of your spotted pony before she laid down and died. That pony stood guard over the corpse all evening, as if death can fill any shape it is offered, as if a marriage, which begins with so little, must finally ask for everything.
MALU TAN was born in Manila, Philippines, and studied at the Art Academy in London. Tan’s abstract expressionist pieces are featured in the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Katonah Museum at Schoolhouse Theater, Monika Olko Gallery, Charlestown Gallery, Faber Birren, The Philippine Consulate in New York, and the permanent collection of the Yale New Haven Medical Center and Cartus Corporation. She lives in Charlotte, NC. See more of her work on her website.