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14 to 31 December 2013Exhibition Opening 14 December, Saturday, 7.30pm

MoCA @ LOEWEN PRESENTS

A multi-disciplinary exhibitionfeaturing 13 emerging Singapore artists.

MoCA @ Loewen Presents


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A Multi-Disciplinary Arts Exhibition


14 to 31 December 2013Exhibition Opening 14 December, Saturday, 7.30pm

/ fa ų nd /• having been discovered by chance or unexpectedly •

MoCA @ LOEWEN PRESENTS

A multi-disciplinary exhibitionfeaturing 13 emerging Singapore artists.



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In 2009, the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Loewen Road was established after Linda Gallery was awarded the project to develop an integrated museum and art facilities through an inter-agency Committee chaired by the National Heritage Board (NHB) with members from the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA).

Since then, the museum has exhibited top-tier Southeast Asian contemporary artists like Zhu Wei and Sui Jian Guo.

Welcome to FOUND, a multi-disciplinary exhibition of 13 emerging Singapore contemporary artists.

This exhibition is an introduction to works by:

Ade Putra - Mixed Media

Amirah Eliyana Insyirah - Painting

Ashley Yeo - Drawing

Denise Jillian Tan - Painting

Felicia Quah - Photography

Cheong Kah Meng - Video Art

Izziyana Suhaimi - Threadwork Installation

Khairullah Rahim - Painting

K.C. Gan - Found Objects Sculpture

Marisse Caine - Photography

Nicholas Lim - Installation

Tay Lai Meng - Painting

Yeo Jian Long - Mixed Media

Loosely based on the different contexts the word FOUND is found in, the exhibition aims to highlight the artists’ individual style, their journey in discovering this individuality and vindication to pursue a career as a visual artist in Singapore.

DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE CURATOR’S MESSAGE

Mark CheongMuseum Director

Shahirah Jasni Gail ChinCuratorial Team

As Southeast Asian art becomes more global, MoCA@Loewen aims to bring the best in Southeast Asian contemporary art to the public. With one of the best and rapidly changing art infrastructures in the world, Singapore has become a sprouting ground for new and emerging talents in Visual Arts.

FOUND is our premier in an annual series of December exhibitions and in this multi-disciplinary exhibition, we are proud to feature these 13 artists.

We invite you to come on a journey with us and hopefully find a lost memory, or discover a new understanding of what contemporary art means and be enlightened on the journeys our artists take in creating contemporary works of art.

FOUND was an idea that began when we came across an article by Jason Tedjasukmana in DestinAsian. In it he said, “Singapore is moving quickly to put in place the intellectual and physical infrastructure that it hopes will elevate it to the ranks of great art capitals such as New York, London, and Paris.”

With sophisticated art infrastructures in place, new policies and international galleries flocking to showcase in Singapore, we started questioning where our local art scene was positioned globally, do we even have a local art scene and how did contemporary art in Singapore look like now. This search then inspired us to name this exhibition FOUND.

It has been quite a journey, working alongside all 13 artists in capturing and bringing to life their personal reactions and experiences of the word FOUND. In this exhibition, we found not only new interpretations and definitions but also a resurgence of talents and techniques.

FOUND raises issues about what contemporary art is like in Singapore ‘now’ and how these emerging artists strive until their own voice is found.

We invite you to define what contemporary art is for you ‘now’.



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FOUND

1. Ade Putra - Mixed Media

2. Amirah Eliyana Insyirah - Painting

3. Ashley Yeo - Drawing

4. Denise Jillian Tan - Painting

5. Felicia Quah - Photography

6. Cheong Kah Meng - Video Art

7. Izziyana Suhaimi - Threadwork Installation

8. Khairullah Rahim - Painting

9. K.C. Gan - Found Objects Sculpture

10. Marisse Caine - Photography

11. Nicholas Lim - Installation

12. Tay Lai Meng - Painting

13. Yeo Jian Long - Mixed Media

EXHIBITING ARTISTS



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A Fine Arts graduate from LASALLE College of the Arts, Ade has started to carve a name for himself as a mixed media artist. Ade’s art making is ruled by his obsessive need to organize clutter.

In “Inroads” series, he uses layers as a vital component in his art making process and creates depth that suggests the intricate nature of the cityscape. Deliberate use of specific geometric shapes and the use of processed colours signify the city as a crucial thriving space.

INROADS

Obsessive – preoccupied, continually and intrusively. Compulsive – an irresistible urge and against one’s wish.Disorder – tiresome days of mess and clutter.A careful selection of wood from different parts of Singapore, and assembled into a projection of his chaotic environment.

ADE PUTRA

Mixed Media on Canvas121 x 183cm2013



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A graduate from LASALLE College of the Arts, Amirah majored in Western painting with a focus on photo-realism and use portraits and figures as a subject matter to illustrate her personal experiences and observations of her daily surroundings.

Amirah presents the constant search and chase for ambition in her series “Intangible”.

AMIRAH ELIYANA INSYIRAH

INTANGIBLE #1

Oil on Canvas91 x 122cm2013

Seeking a way out.A humdrum existence.Everyday capturing.Ambition is a 32-panel pentagon football, red glazed four wheeler and a jet-fuelled flight



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Having graduated with an MA in Fine Art (with merit) from the prestigious Chelsea College of Art and Design, Ashley consistently seek to achieve a quiet presence through her drawings. When she first started making art seriously, Ashley made the deliberate decision to use drawing as a medium.

In “The world is full without me” series, she employs different drawing techniques to speak a single language that are both projections of her mind and emotions. A recipient of LASALLE’s Academic Excellence Award, Ashley will be doing a residency in Vermont Studio Centre, USA this November and in Arctic Circle, International territory of Svalbard in 2014.

ASHLEY YEO

POST GRIEVING (LEAVES)

Graphite on Paper60 x 70cm2013

Found is a feeling and it is invisible.It is not tangible.It is emerging but not yet fully formed.It is both knowing and not knowing.The nameless destination that the mind seeks becomes a noise. Found as an unknown, heavy process, she seeks for the quiet by portraying her drawings as a veil.



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A graduate in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts, Kah Meng is intrigued by the evolution of old classical paintings to contemporary painting. In “Visual Adoption” series, Kah Meng plays the role of a historical researcher, questioning if reality is in fact being imagined.

Through multi media technology, use the frame as both a physical and metaphorical form to contain his artworks.

CHEONG KAH MENG

Rigid, enclosing structure.Closed off, separates, differentiates.

Framing, a metaphorical representation of the lost & found duality.

Displaying around and outside the constrains of a frame.

A frame of a frame of a boundless frame.

VISUAL ADOPTION

1 Minute Video91 x 122cm2013



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Graduating from LASALLE College of the Arts with a strong interest in the art of portraiture, Denise puts emphasis on the postures and expressions of the human body to bring out the beauty of an individual.

In her series, “The Borrower” Denise lets the viewer in on the complexities of the artist’s mind and surprises us with the limits of our ability to relate and understand.

DENISE JILLIAN TAN

THE BORROWER


Working incessantly.Conceal one’s identity.Achieve with admirable ease.Use of human features to address the human mind and its understanding.



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FELICIA QUAH

NOISE Singapore Award Winner 2013, Felicia seeks to photograph the impressions people leave in each other’s lives. She will be presenting a single photograph in “The Condition of Existence” series that inevitably evokes emotional response and narrates neutrality from both subject and the significance and impact of a single picture.

Felicia currently majors in photography at Nanyang Technological University’s ADM.

Impermanence.

An echo, a reverberation of the aftermath.

A mark of absence and loss.

A forced reminder of mortality and the beauty of being human.It is only when we are torn apart that we find out who we really are.

THE CONDITION OF EXISTENCE

Archival Inkjet Print60 x 160cm2013



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Since graduating 3 years ago from Nanyang Technological University’s ADM, Izziyana has not stopped producing art. Her works have travelled globally to Young Art Taipei, yet little is known about the illusive Izzi. Most of her threadworks are intimate in proportion and size, but each time projecting the simplicity and vital connection of her roots where sewing is an art form passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter.

In this series, “For something to be found, it first has to be lost” Izzi will be creating a first in her career as a contemporary artist – a 3.25 square meter threadwork installation that is both performance and sculptural.

IZZIYANA SUHAIMI

The giant topographical map allows patrons a chance to participate in her art making by sewing on a piece of their own. The installation is a work in progress throughout the exhibition and will be documented. A fair trade, the audience will have a hand in the final turnout as much as the artist will be able to understand how her art impacts them.

FOR SOMETHING TO BE FOUND,FIRST IT HAS TO BE LOST

Thread on Calico250 x 130cm2013

Opening:Diagrammatic representation.

An invitation to glimpse into the artist’s mindscape.

Closing:A topographical representation.

Of things lost and found and lost and found and lost again and found.



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K.C. Gan is a graduate from Goldsmith University (LASALLE College of the Arts) and is inspired by the 80s art movements of neo-expressionism, graffiti and neo-pop. Neo-expressionism aims to express life in its truest form by creating pieces with real-life history but adding a little bit of their own myth to it while neo-pop incorporates iconic symbols or statements as inspiration and graffiti is about using the surrounding as their canvas.

In this series “On My Bedroom Wall”, K.C. use layers of found objects to represent his personal life in the past that was filled with adventure, struggle and experiences. Laced with personal items such as hand written notes,

K.C. GAN

journal entries and personal gifts from friends, he glues them together to create works of his life experiences, filled with nostalgia.

His only message being, Live, Love & Adventure.

ON MY BEDROOM WALL

Mixed Media41 x 39 x 62cm2013

Magic is finding art in retired objects.Memories are reliving what was once and still is important to us.Nostalgia, a wistful affection for my past.Beauty is in refusing to forget.



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Khairullah Rahim is a graduate from LASALLE College of the Arts (Painting with a First Class Honors). Driven by his interest in issues regarding spatial conflict between straightness and queerness in a domestic frame, he confront his personal struggles to constantly avoid from being noticed, observed or discovered, in fact to stay in hiding.

His series of familiar ornamental fishes paintings act as a metaphor to address the concern of the hidden.

KHAIRULLAH RAHIM

BEATING AROUND THE BUSH

Acrylic and Oil on CanvasDiameter 80cm2013

Queer, informal, usually of a man and offensive.

Hide, hidden, hiding.

He said, “Defacto, gays have a lot of space in Singapore. Gay groups hold public discussions. They publish websites… There are films and plays on gay themes… There are gay bars and clubs. They exist. We know where they are… We do not harass gays… and we do not proactively enforce section 377A on them.”



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Marisse is currently a student of photography at Nanyang of Fine Arts Academy. Her approach has been to present ideals behind romanticism aesthetics of the mind, body and soul, almost a euphemism of surrendering to God’s creation and the universe. As a photographer, she often documents the abstract life and the process that is searching for a destination.

For her “Blank” series, Marisse aims to recreate the ominous presence of love that never have to be fully described in order for it to be fully understood.

MARISSE CAINE

BLANK

Print on Awigami Paper84.9 x 118.9cm (A0)2013

An anomaly — a blooming flower out of a crack in the concrete slab.

A tint — marred by a dream.

A hint — déjà vu of what is, what has been and what is to come.



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Time is an over-riding obsession in Nicholas’ works. Graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts as an installation artist, Nicholas often collect objects scattered in public spaces to narrate his concept on time. His fascination of time making derived from his father’s profession as a horologist. As a child, he was intrigued by the notion of creating time or rather the idea of creation, this became a driven goal for Nicholas to explore into the process of art making.

In “BLK”, Nicholas looks at how over time, we find ourselves trapped in a cage made from our own fixed schedules.

NICHOLAS LIM

BLK

Mixed Media InstallationVariable Dimension

2013

Building a structure of hard wired schedules and concrete tasks. To keep out as well as to keep in.Of sound mind – the element of a person that enables them to be aware of their world, to think, to feel…

A time lapse.



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Lai Meng graduated with a Diploma in Western Painting from Nanyang Academy of Fine Art and is interested in recreating memories through hyperrealism.On his technique, Lai Meng is mostly self-taught and progresses towards creating a painting and not just a copy of a photograph.

In “Lost and Found #2” series, Lai Meng captures the death of time and lost memories and through the use of black and white tones represents the faded past that we tend to forget in an ever-evolving society.

TAY LAI MENG

LOST & FOUND #2


Rummaged pocket monsters. Childhood-scapes, a false reality.Clinging, searching.



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Jian Long graduated with Honors in Western Painting from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. During a school trip to the U.K, Jian Long fell in love with landscapes and romanticism and when he came back, was eager to create the quiet beauty from the bygone era.

In Singapore where paintings are mostly cityscapes, Jian Long is one of a kind with his landscapes of tucked away bits of nature in Singapore. As if finding a lost treasure, Long’s artworks on wood is a rediscovery of technique in the ways of the Old Masters.

YEO JIAN LONG

VESTIGE : BROWN

Biro and Oil on Wooden Panel48 x 61cm2013

Isolating — an act of man’s dominance over beauty.Excavating — revealing buried remains of nature.Etching and engraving — an Old Master’s influence.



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PROGRAMMES

CREDITS SUPPORTING PARTNER

14 Dec Saturday7.30pm

14 Dec to 31 Dec

Opening in presence of Artists

Contemporary Art Talk by Paul Hume

Still Life / Assemblage activity corner

Group Curatorial Tour

Live Demonstration for Still Life / Assemblageby K.C. GAN

Live participation in Izziyana Suhaimi’s “For something to be found, it first has to be lost” installation

Live participation in Izziyana Suhaimi’s “For something to be found, it first has to be lost” installation

Museum DirectorMark Cheong

Curatorial TeamShahirah JasniGail Chin

Curatorial AssistantsAlsa ChiAbigail Lee

Artist Guest Mentor Paul HumeGlasgow School of Arts, Singapore

Art Direction | Graphic DesignRafiz Raman

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