Foyer Space Tea Ceremony in the Celestial Garden

Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) presents Tea Ceremony in the Celestial Garden by Jayanto Tan.

Colourfully crafted confections tantalise the viewer from inside glass cabinets in Tea Ceremony in the Celestial Garden. Reminiscent of the famous Japanese food display ‘shokuhin sampuru’ or French pastries display in Paris, the cakes are mouth-watering, but not for consumption. The construction of the cakes in ceramics is labour-intensive, down to each sprinkle of hundreds and thousands. Their imaginary forms conjure a colourful, dream-like world. This project was created during a 2025 artist residency at the PumpHouse Albury.

Growing up in a large farming family in Indonesia, the artist has many memories of gatherings in the kitchen, cooking, sharing stories, laughing, singing, and drinking tea. Cake was a luxury even for formal occasions like birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, and funerals. Tan reflects on those bittersweet memories. Even though the family may not have been able to afford cakes like these, they are offered here with humour and love.

The mystery of cake, fake or real, lies under the heavy icing and elaborate decoration. The cakes are pretty to look at but carry weight underneath. Each glass cabinet is securely locked, and the objects can’t be touched. For the artist, looking through the glass exposes the fragility of raw human material covered in makeup, like late-night performers.

The garden that the artist has created, to honour family and friends who have deceased, explores Tan's personal narrative of identity, longing, queerness, lost family, memorial, and self-destruction, here portrayed through alienation, fantasy, and desire in a peaceful dreamland.Tea Ceremony in the Celestial Garden is a space where friends and family from the past, and Gallery visitors in the present, can mingle to envision the future.

This exhibition is dedicated to my beautiful mother. - Jayanto Tan