✷ Sundry AiR: The Gift That Keeps on Giving (2023)
✷ I’m Exhausted, Where is He? (2022)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
✷ Lady Dior As Seen By (2024)
✷ Of placebos that sing sweet in the... (2024)
✷ Between The Lines (2024)
✷ ASEAN ON PAPER (2023)
✷ Serving Thots (2023)
✷ Diverse Visions (2023)
✷ Nature and Now: Asian Art in Focus (2023)
✷ There Are Flowers in the Morning Mist (2022)
✷ State of Play (2022)
✷ It’s my party and I’ll if I want to, you’ll... (2022)
✷ only losers left alive (love songs for... (2021)
✷ The Foot Beneath the Flower: Camp... (2020)
SERIES & CATEGORIES
✷ Untitled (Chocolate Boxes) (ongoing)
✷ Who Knew I’d Be the Stable One (ongoing)
✷ Untitled (Radial Sculptures) (ongoing)
✷ Installation
✷ Print & Drawing
✷ Text
There Are Flowers in the Morning Mist
17 December 2022–15 February 2023
Supper House
Singapore, Singapore
Curated by Ashley Chiam
Part of Singapore Art Week 2023
Images Courtesy of Supper House
Related Artworks
No One Can Hurt You Here (2023)
17 December 2022–15 February 2023
Supper House
Singapore, Singapore
Curated by Ashley Chiam
Part of Singapore Art Week 2023
Images Courtesy of Supper House
Related Artworks
No One Can Hurt You Here (2023)
Description
Excerpt from Artist Statement:
‘No One Can Hurt You Here’ is a context-based installation based on themes exploring the psychological idea of “safe spaces”. As a continued exploration into self-therapy through environmental stimulus, the artwork is an abstract construction of the artist’s safe space–a non-physical environment he can be himself in and be in control of his emotions, where neither emotional nor physical harm can manifest.
Working with inflatables for the first time, the work expands on the artist’s body of ornamented work, reintroducing the abstract floral motifs from past works like ‘Bouquet of Disappointment (2021)’ and ‘That’s the Last Time I’m Watering Your Flowers (2021)’. In this iteration, florals continue to be a symbolism of femmeness within the context of alternative identity, with the inflatable medium intended as metaphors for emotional lightness and safety. Mirroring the ever-changing nature of how we perceive and circumvent threats to our safe-spaces, the installation is free-forming, periodically reconfiguring according to the natural and inevitable deflation rate of the sculptures.
Set-up within a makeshift square structure in a manner that amplifies intimacy and privacy, the installation focuses on three main floral inflatable components, placed in close proximity to two chairs, allowing for only two people to experience the work at any given time. As a first attempt into performance, in an extended segment titled “Welcome,” the artist was present, inviting one available participant at a time to experience the work with him, led by conversations on emotional wellbeing.
Excerpt from Artist Statement:
‘No One Can Hurt You Here’ is a context-based installation based on themes exploring the psychological idea of “safe spaces”. As a continued exploration into self-therapy through environmental stimulus, the artwork is an abstract construction of the artist’s safe space–a non-physical environment he can be himself in and be in control of his emotions, where neither emotional nor physical harm can manifest.
Working with inflatables for the first time, the work expands on the artist’s body of ornamented work, reintroducing the abstract floral motifs from past works like ‘Bouquet of Disappointment (2021)’ and ‘That’s the Last Time I’m Watering Your Flowers (2021)’. In this iteration, florals continue to be a symbolism of femmeness within the context of alternative identity, with the inflatable medium intended as metaphors for emotional lightness and safety. Mirroring the ever-changing nature of how we perceive and circumvent threats to our safe-spaces, the installation is free-forming, periodically reconfiguring according to the natural and inevitable deflation rate of the sculptures.
Set-up within a makeshift square structure in a manner that amplifies intimacy and privacy, the installation focuses on three main floral inflatable components, placed in close proximity to two chairs, allowing for only two people to experience the work at any given time. As a first attempt into performance, in an extended segment titled “Welcome,” the artist was present, inviting one available participant at a time to experience the work with him, led by conversations on emotional wellbeing.
State of Play
28 August–31 October 2020
Richard Koh Fine Arts
Singapore, Singapore
Images Courtesy of Richard Koh Fine Arts
Related Artworks
You’re Spiralling Again (2022)
You’re Repeating the Same Mistakes (2022)
You’re Bending to His Will (2022)
28 August–31 October 2020
Richard Koh Fine Arts
Singapore, Singapore
Images Courtesy of Richard Koh Fine Arts
Related Artworks
You’re Spiralling Again (2022)
You’re Repeating the Same Mistakes (2022)
You’re Bending to His Will (2022)
Description
Excerpt of Essay by Writer Euginia Tan:
Demystifying Playgrounds
“Art, frolicking in the sand playground of our memories, has a crucial role amidst Singapore’s endless cycle of demolition and rebuilding and the accompanying logic of pragmatism and state control. Contemporary art can critique but also console.” - Clarissa Oon, Writer
The subject of ‘play’ for artists requires extensive navigation. The current open call for Singapore Art Week 2023 is in fact, responding to the theme of Play. What are the grounds of play, or the playgrounds for artists? What are aspects of a state of play which apply to creatives then and now?
The humbling element of a playground is its pre-ordained status as a fun zone, an active, mobile site for bodies and minds to roam. This same need for fun activity is crucial in an artistic process. In State of Play (2022), seven artists invite us into their pursuit of alternate creative zones traversing play, catharsis and myth. Showcasing works by Ash Ghazali, Hu Qiren, Mengju Lin, Faris Nakamura, Ivan David Ng, Melissa Tan and Samuel Xun, this essay attempts to analyse the common denominator of play from the seven featured artists with three main entry points: Myth/Play, Free/Play and Structure/Play.
For these three categories, the essay will draw reference from a forum transcription by theatre practitioner Paul Rae, anthropologist Mariam Mohammed Ali and Associate Professor of Sociology Nirmala PuruShotam regarding cultural production in Singapore, entitled Strategies for the Practice and Management of Cultural Production in Singapore Inc. (2001).
A decision of freedom is usually brought about by a prior bout of suppression, even to the extent of alienation. To demonstrate how the artists’ works respond with being deemed free, we can first contrast it with how it may feel to be artistically suppressed. On this point, we can refer to Ali’s explanation of a privileged work /labour force from an anthropological stance in Singapore.
Free/Play
As part of her forum transcript, Ali begins by mulling on “how our conception of work is framed, from a perspective of privileged economics”. Progression of labour has led to many seeing the workplace as a corporate desire, wherein the notion of work has also swerved to “produce notions about consumers”. Ali reiterates this point by stating that at the moment, “the economy itself is a product of culture. Historical narratives are also culture at work over time.” The dependency and evolvement of highly skilled labour resulted in organised work becoming specialised. “Work processes got chopped up into their smallest and simplest parts. One of the crises this era created was the crisis of alienation. There was an alienation of people from their work processes, their work environment and colleagues.”
This forum had taken place twenty-one years ago, and the idea of alienation around labour at large had already been suggested. The economics of labour have only sped up since then. Inevitably, our artists have had to keep up with this labour as resiliently as they could. However, it is unavoidable that exerting too much on any system of labour would result in fatigue. The emphasis on specialization would also put in place higher barriers of entry in artistic production. A pursuit of contentment was no longer sufficient with societal ideology. Both home and the workplace faced a pressure to
be “perceived as place(s) where you can express yourself creatively... (with) a need to farm out work related to the home sphere, such as sending children for piano lessons.
Xun’s wall-mounted installations You’re Bending to His Will, You’re Repeating the Same Mistakes and You’re Spiralling Again are rooted in themes exploring therapy for self. Xun chimes off consistent, deprecating and disillusioned reminders for preservation and rationalised behaviour, questioning the motivations behind alluded self-improvement. The works expand on the artist’s prior series of a similar intimate premise, with a fixation on chalking down rhetoric thought processes.
In the ardour of expectations and creative tasks, these artists have found ways to bend the humdrum of medium and identity into a call for catharsis. This can deflect the usual notion of making art in regulated rigour. As Ali concludes in her transcript, “We can look at work as a task, or an array of processes by which we make a living. Tied to this is the notion of “career”. You have a situation where all the other processes tend to be seen as less productive. They support work but are not seen as crucial or sustaining.” By discarding the convoluted affiliation of exhaustive labour-mapping – Ghazali, Lin and Xun engage in an orchestration of unshackled artistic tempo.
Excerpt of Essay by Writer Euginia Tan:
Demystifying Playgrounds
“Art, frolicking in the sand playground of our memories, has a crucial role amidst Singapore’s endless cycle of demolition and rebuilding and the accompanying logic of pragmatism and state control. Contemporary art can critique but also console.” - Clarissa Oon, Writer
The subject of ‘play’ for artists requires extensive navigation. The current open call for Singapore Art Week 2023 is in fact, responding to the theme of Play. What are the grounds of play, or the playgrounds for artists? What are aspects of a state of play which apply to creatives then and now?
The humbling element of a playground is its pre-ordained status as a fun zone, an active, mobile site for bodies and minds to roam. This same need for fun activity is crucial in an artistic process. In State of Play (2022), seven artists invite us into their pursuit of alternate creative zones traversing play, catharsis and myth. Showcasing works by Ash Ghazali, Hu Qiren, Mengju Lin, Faris Nakamura, Ivan David Ng, Melissa Tan and Samuel Xun, this essay attempts to analyse the common denominator of play from the seven featured artists with three main entry points: Myth/Play, Free/Play and Structure/Play.
For these three categories, the essay will draw reference from a forum transcription by theatre practitioner Paul Rae, anthropologist Mariam Mohammed Ali and Associate Professor of Sociology Nirmala PuruShotam regarding cultural production in Singapore, entitled Strategies for the Practice and Management of Cultural Production in Singapore Inc. (2001).
A decision of freedom is usually brought about by a prior bout of suppression, even to the extent of alienation. To demonstrate how the artists’ works respond with being deemed free, we can first contrast it with how it may feel to be artistically suppressed. On this point, we can refer to Ali’s explanation of a privileged work /labour force from an anthropological stance in Singapore.
Free/Play
As part of her forum transcript, Ali begins by mulling on “how our conception of work is framed, from a perspective of privileged economics”. Progression of labour has led to many seeing the workplace as a corporate desire, wherein the notion of work has also swerved to “produce notions about consumers”. Ali reiterates this point by stating that at the moment, “the economy itself is a product of culture. Historical narratives are also culture at work over time.” The dependency and evolvement of highly skilled labour resulted in organised work becoming specialised. “Work processes got chopped up into their smallest and simplest parts. One of the crises this era created was the crisis of alienation. There was an alienation of people from their work processes, their work environment and colleagues.”
This forum had taken place twenty-one years ago, and the idea of alienation around labour at large had already been suggested. The economics of labour have only sped up since then. Inevitably, our artists have had to keep up with this labour as resiliently as they could. However, it is unavoidable that exerting too much on any system of labour would result in fatigue. The emphasis on specialization would also put in place higher barriers of entry in artistic production. A pursuit of contentment was no longer sufficient with societal ideology. Both home and the workplace faced a pressure to
be “perceived as place(s) where you can express yourself creatively... (with) a need to farm out work related to the home sphere, such as sending children for piano lessons.
Xun’s wall-mounted installations You’re Bending to His Will, You’re Repeating the Same Mistakes and You’re Spiralling Again are rooted in themes exploring therapy for self. Xun chimes off consistent, deprecating and disillusioned reminders for preservation and rationalised behaviour, questioning the motivations behind alluded self-improvement. The works expand on the artist’s prior series of a similar intimate premise, with a fixation on chalking down rhetoric thought processes.
In the ardour of expectations and creative tasks, these artists have found ways to bend the humdrum of medium and identity into a call for catharsis. This can deflect the usual notion of making art in regulated rigour. As Ali concludes in her transcript, “We can look at work as a task, or an array of processes by which we make a living. Tied to this is the notion of “career”. You have a situation where all the other processes tend to be seen as less productive. They support work but are not seen as crucial or sustaining.” By discarding the convoluted affiliation of exhaustive labour-mapping – Ghazali, Lin and Xun engage in an orchestration of unshackled artistic tempo.
Veneer & Visage
12 February–06 March 2022
Supper House
Singapore, Singapore
Curated by Weiqin Chay
Images Courtesy of Supper House
Related Artworks
Maybe, Just Maybe (2022)
12 February–06 March 2022
Supper House
Singapore, Singapore
Curated by Weiqin Chay
Images Courtesy of Supper House
Related Artworks
Maybe, Just Maybe (2022)
Description
Excerpt of Exhibition Text by Curator Weiqin Chay:
‘Veneer & Visage’ delves into the ways identities are projected when (un)covering the facade of one’s appearance. In attempting to peel away these layers on the surface, we explore how the veneer as an in-between space filters, obfuscates, and reshapes how one is perceived.
Featured exhibits include fashion, textile composition, sculpture, and digital painting by six multidisciplinary Singaporean artists who tap on their personal narratives to create artworks that reimagine the ‘face’. The works are aptly situated in the beautiful interior of the design house, Supper House which aims to be a point of congregation for diverse creative fields.
Excerpt of Review by Writer Weiqi Yap:
‘Veneer and Visage’ is an art and fashion exhibition staged at Supper House, an interdisciplinary space for creatives nestled in an industrial building on Tagore Lane in Singapore. Curated by Weiqin Chay, the exhibition seeks to explore “the ways identities are projected when (un)covering the facade of one’s appearance.” The exhibition’s premise is a topical one, as masking and concealing one’s face continues to be a mandatory safety measure in many places around the world. It is not uncommon for fashion exhibitions to respond to cultural events—galleries and museums have long drawn on historical events as points of curatorial germination. Most recently, the ICOM Costume Committee unveiled ‘Clothing the Pandemic’, a virtual exhibition of Covid-19 face masks curated by museums worldwide, including masks from the collections of Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum.
‘Veneer and Visage’ takes this timely—and now universal—act of masking, and extrapolates it by asking: what other ways do we veil ourselves, metaphorically or otherwise? Upon entry, one is greeted by what appears to be the wooden exteriors of a black box structure. This intervention forms a space within a space, and conveniently functions as an interesting subversion of the white cube. Ideas of protection, concealment and identities come into play through the works of two fashion designers, Esther Choy of Esh by Esther, and Rachael Cheong of Closet Children, and four artists, Hafizah Jainal, Y A, Phua Juan Yong and Samuel Xun. This multidisciplinary assembly of practitioners falls in step with the nature of Supper House. Envisioned as a crossroads for creatives to collaborate and create, the space has the potential to serve as a natural host to such an exhibition.
Excerpt of Exhibition Text by Curator Weiqin Chay:
‘Veneer & Visage’ delves into the ways identities are projected when (un)covering the facade of one’s appearance. In attempting to peel away these layers on the surface, we explore how the veneer as an in-between space filters, obfuscates, and reshapes how one is perceived.
Featured exhibits include fashion, textile composition, sculpture, and digital painting by six multidisciplinary Singaporean artists who tap on their personal narratives to create artworks that reimagine the ‘face’. The works are aptly situated in the beautiful interior of the design house, Supper House which aims to be a point of congregation for diverse creative fields.
Excerpt of Review by Writer Weiqi Yap:
‘Veneer and Visage’ is an art and fashion exhibition staged at Supper House, an interdisciplinary space for creatives nestled in an industrial building on Tagore Lane in Singapore. Curated by Weiqin Chay, the exhibition seeks to explore “the ways identities are projected when (un)covering the facade of one’s appearance.” The exhibition’s premise is a topical one, as masking and concealing one’s face continues to be a mandatory safety measure in many places around the world. It is not uncommon for fashion exhibitions to respond to cultural events—galleries and museums have long drawn on historical events as points of curatorial germination. Most recently, the ICOM Costume Committee unveiled ‘Clothing the Pandemic’, a virtual exhibition of Covid-19 face masks curated by museums worldwide, including masks from the collections of Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum.
‘Veneer and Visage’ takes this timely—and now universal—act of masking, and extrapolates it by asking: what other ways do we veil ourselves, metaphorically or otherwise? Upon entry, one is greeted by what appears to be the wooden exteriors of a black box structure. This intervention forms a space within a space, and conveniently functions as an interesting subversion of the white cube. Ideas of protection, concealment and identities come into play through the works of two fashion designers, Esther Choy of Esh by Esther, and Rachael Cheong of Closet Children, and four artists, Hafizah Jainal, Y A, Phua Juan Yong and Samuel Xun. This multidisciplinary assembly of practitioners falls in step with the nature of Supper House. Envisioned as a crossroads for creatives to collaborate and create, the space has the potential to serve as a natural host to such an exhibition.
It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, you would cry too if it happened to you
12 January–06 February 2022
The Projector
Singapore, Singapore
Curated by Louis Ho
Images Courtesy of Louis Ho & The Projector
Related Artworks
BRB, Powdering My Nose (Men’s & Women’s Room) (2022)
I Still Can’t Believe I Blamed Myself (2022)
Untitled (I Love You, But I Love Me More) (2022)
Another Year Wiser (2022)
12 January–06 February 2022
The Projector
Singapore, Singapore
Curated by Louis Ho
Images Courtesy of Louis Ho & The Projector
Related Artworks
BRB, Powdering My Nose (Men’s & Women’s Room) (2022)
I Still Can’t Believe I Blamed Myself (2022)
Untitled (I Love You, But I Love Me More) (2022)
Another Year Wiser (2022)
Description
Excerpt of Exhibition Catalogue by Curator Louis Ho:
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, you would cry too if it happened to you" is a project about unhappiness, or more specifically, affirmative unhappiness.
The collaboration between The Projector, Singapore’s foremost independent cinema theatre, and curator Louis Ho, is comprised of an exhibition of site-specific works located in The Projector’s Golden Mile space and a retrospective of Indonesian filmmaker, Kamila Andini. Works in the exhibition respond to the theme of affirmative unhappiness through the televisual medium, unhappiness being understood as feelings that do not serve the needs of dominant modes of contemporary life, simply because to be happy would be to accord with those ill-fitting frameworks.
In a pair of multi-component installations, Xun employs his characteristic sugary palettes and ornamented textures to activate the otherwise mundane environment of The Projector’s bathrooms, and as commentary on the melodrama and melancholy found in his favourite films and television programs. The colours and texture of his objects, from the synthetic textiles of heart-shaped soft sculptures to the embellishments adorning bejewelled urinal cakes, are references to specific scenes in “Desperate Housewives”, “Sex & the City” and “Please Like Me”, and “Happy Together” (1997) and “Shelter” (2007). These scenes are marked by personal setbacks for the characters involved, and the psychology of sadness is here filtered through the incongruity between the aesthetics and materiality of camp, and the multivalent significance of the public restroom (ranging from soilage to illicit sex.
Excerpt of Exhibition Catalogue by Curator Louis Ho:
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, you would cry too if it happened to you" is a project about unhappiness, or more specifically, affirmative unhappiness.
The collaboration between The Projector, Singapore’s foremost independent cinema theatre, and curator Louis Ho, is comprised of an exhibition of site-specific works located in The Projector’s Golden Mile space and a retrospective of Indonesian filmmaker, Kamila Andini. Works in the exhibition respond to the theme of affirmative unhappiness through the televisual medium, unhappiness being understood as feelings that do not serve the needs of dominant modes of contemporary life, simply because to be happy would be to accord with those ill-fitting frameworks.
In a pair of multi-component installations, Xun employs his characteristic sugary palettes and ornamented textures to activate the otherwise mundane environment of The Projector’s bathrooms, and as commentary on the melodrama and melancholy found in his favourite films and television programs. The colours and texture of his objects, from the synthetic textiles of heart-shaped soft sculptures to the embellishments adorning bejewelled urinal cakes, are references to specific scenes in “Desperate Housewives”, “Sex & the City” and “Please Like Me”, and “Happy Together” (1997) and “Shelter” (2007). These scenes are marked by personal setbacks for the characters involved, and the psychology of sadness is here filtered through the incongruity between the aesthetics and materiality of camp, and the multivalent significance of the public restroom (ranging from soilage to illicit sex.