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GALLERY & STUDIO 4 GALLERY & STUDIO 5

Happy Anniversary

Jonathan Tan, Deputy Editor

facilitators, with the responsibility to share our experiences

in colour, shape and form with you.

To celebrate the progress we’ve made, we toast the

men and women who have made the conscious decision

to pursue their burning passions. In this issue, we spoke

with master sculptors Johan Cretan and Jedd Novatt,

mixed-media magician Ysabel LeMay, human chameleon

Liu Bolin and portrait specialist Sandro Miller. In

particular, we cast the spotlight on some of the leading

ladies in Singapore’s art scene (page XX) and spent some

time with art consultants Cheryl Ho and Veronica Howe,

gallery owner Rasina Rubin, and artists Dawn Ng and

Donna Ong. At the same time, we’ve been swept up by

the excitement of the Singapore Art Week, headlined by

Art Stage and the Prudential Singapore Eye Awards and

Exhibition. Read all about them in our feature, Fair Game

(page XX). Addressing the business side of art, we took

up conversation with Nigel Hurst, chief executive of the

Saatchi Gallery and Daniel Komala, chief executive of

auction house Larasati. Last, but by no means the least,

we’ve also introduced a new series on art investment (page

xx) to offer both seasoned and first-time buyers alike an

alternative perspective.

Thank you for your continuous support and as always,

we trust that you’ll enjoy this issue.

Issue #4.

The volume you now hold in hand marks a year since

Gallery & Studio forayed into the art world. And while

every issue is a challenge in itself, we’ve been fortunate to

have never found inspiration lacking.

Why would we? Having started out with the intention

to explore the art world, and share that experience in a

personable voice with engaging visuals, we’ve found

ourselves privileged visitors to a magical world—an

immensely storied one, full of colour, vigour, struggle,

passion and beauty.

Collaborating with our dedicated team of writers,

photographers and designers over the last four issues,

we’ve developed a profound respect for artists and

the marvellous work they create. Be they pleasing,

mesmerising, inspirational, controversial, or just plain

confusing, it’s very much a matter of personal tastes.

Hence the golden rule of an art collection: Buy what you

like. That way, you’d always be able to enjoy the aesthetic

of your purchase.

At the same time, we’ve been honing our eye for

appreciating art as we’ve meandered along this fascinating

journey of discovery. While our presentation remains

stimulating, we’ve become more incisive as our knowledge

deepens. We’ll never be critics, but we see ourselves as

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced in any form in whole or part without

the written permission of the publishers.

EditorTim McIntyre

[email protected]

DEPUTY EditorJonathan Tan

[email protected]

Art DirectorEdroos Alsagoff

DesignerShahrul Azmi, Diana Chwee

PhotographyAlbert Tan | Olive Tree Studio

ContributorsAly Chong

Kayti Denham

Rossara Jamil

Nina Starr

Kok Hui Fen

Melissa Cheng

Mark Teo

Eddie Teo

AdvertisingJacqueline Wong

[email protected]

Circulation and ProductionAisha Sabile

published byBig Time Publishing Pte Ltd

220 Tagore Lane, 03-01

Singapore 787 600

Tel: +65 6836 2216

Fax: +65 6836 2872

PrintingPrinted in Singapore by

KHL Printing Co Pte Ltd

MCI (P) 115/08/2013

GALLERY & STUDIO 8

No Man’s Land

Art On A Mission

The Body Canvas

La Maison Du Pastel

Adrenaline, On Canvas

A Multi-Sensory Experience

A Toolbox Of Expression

Art And Everything Else

Fly On The Wall

The Fabric Of Culture

Draw Of The Unfamiliar

Finders, Weavers

Basic Instinct

Action Man

Art Basel 2014

Best Of Basel In Hong Kong

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56

120

86

14

60

124

146

92

20

64

136

96

One East Asia

Shaking Up The Art World Bernar Venet

Audemars Piguet

A Life In Art Ong Kim Seng

A Photo Essay

Creative Medley Canvas Singapore

Crayon Making

A Labour Of Love TK Quek: Collector

Paul Oz

Ritz-Carlton’s Art Tour

Made Bayak Muliana

Milan Image Art & Design Fair

Sarah Choo

Milica Bravacic

Caratoes

Norberto Roldan

Karla Marchesi

The Colour Of Expression Justin Y

Mark Teo

an Eye for appraisal Bonhams Singapore

Art Basel

New Art Hotspots Five to know

Art Basel Hong Kong

Picture Perfect Alive Museum Singapore

Art Branding Art X Brand Collaborations

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A Patient Explosion

Jedd Novatt might be 14 years into his visceral Chaos series of sculptures but to

the American sculptor, this is just the beginning as the possibilities are limitless

words jonathan tan Photos art Plural Gallery

“Think of it as a drawing, where you take a white piece

of paper and a pencil and you start somewhere. Let’s

say that you can’t put the pencil down; you’ll go wher-

ever it goes and you’ll decide where it goes. But to a cer-

tain degree, you don’t really know where, and it doesn’t

matter,” says American sculptor Jedd Novatt, when asked

to describe the creative process behind his Chaos series

sculptures.

Likening the experience to life’s journey, Novatt says,

“it (sculpting) leads you in different directions. What I

look for, is trusting that I’m following a line of thought,

but not limited in what direction it goes. I’m very rigorous

about working very hard, and making work that feels

fresh to me. I trust my road, and I recognise that it might

go off in any direction.”

Intrinsically, creating his sculptures is a very organic,

emotional process for the artist, despite their ‘structured’

form. The distinctive shapes identify them as a Novatt

piece of work, but that’s where the similarities end.

“If you look at this exhibition, and you look at every

sculpture, you’ll know that they are my works and that

they are part of my Chaos series. But if you really look at

them, they’re entirely different. Each one of them is an

entirely different experience.”

Taking time out from a hectic exhibition schedule

during his recent solo at Art Plural Gallery at 38

Armenian Street, the 56-year-old tells us about the highs

and lows of his 35-year career as a sculptor following

graduation from the Lacoste School of the Arts in France

and from the Sarah Lawrence College in New York. “I’m

following something that I started 35 years ago and I’m

seeing where it goes. It’s always part of a process of the

sculptures before,” he says.

You’ve been working on your Chaos series for the

last 14 years. How did you get started on it?

It was somewhat accidental. I had been working in

my studio in Manhattan on a series of wall-mounted

sculptures in steel. They were essentially an earlier

version of my Chaos series but inside of the skeleton

were heavily painted steel elements.

One day, an artist friend stopped by and said, ‘You’re

not trusting enough what you’ve already created.’ And

I thought, ‘You’re right.’ I removed one from the wall,

eliminated the elements on the inside, and arrived at the

very first of these works. It began a radical change in my

work.

How did the series develop since then?

Much of it is indescribable. I started making sculpture 35

years ago, and each sculpture would lead to the next and

then to the next. I’ve been working with the Chaos series

for the last 14 years, which is much longer than any series

of work I’ve done. I’m not even close to completing it. I

find that exciting — limitless.

Tell us more about the unique prints which you’ve

made for this solo.

The seven prints you see here in the exhibition are

monotypes, and each work is unique. For many years I’ve

worked with collage and of course done drawings. I’ve

always been interested in the print-making process. There

Cha

os F

rene

tico


spotlight

was a teacher at my university named Ansei Uchima, a

Japanese master printmaker. I never took his class, but

I remember going to his class and observing him work.

There was something about it that I was emotionally

touched by. This idea of working with such delicacy. But

I never created a print until this year. These are the first

prints I’ve created and I don’t know why it took me 35

years, but it did. This is the first series of prints I’ve made.

Would you consider various other shapes for your

sculptures?

I’m not focused on the forms, I’m thinking about

redefining a particular space. I’m considering how to

reorganise, or crack, break, or alter a space. The shape

becomes much less relevant to me than what I’m doing

with the space.

How do you know when each sculpture is complete?

Generally you just know, although it’s not always

immediately obvious. I’ve had works in my studio that

initially I thought were done. But I could be having a

glass of wine looking at it, and I’d realise that it’s not

done.

What happens then?

I continue working. This is why I must have enough time

in my studio to observe the work and know whether it is

completed.

Tell us more about the ‘faith’ you keep in the process

of creating your work.

There is an organic and mysterious aspect to the process

of creating art that requires a certain amount of faith …

for example, faith in judging whether a work is complete.

And importantly, faith that the work will be good 10 years

from now, or 100 years from now.

What’s the difference in the way you approach

your smaller ‘home’ sized works and the larger

monumental pieces?

There is an experiential difference with each sculpture.

It doesn’t matter if it’s 2 feet high or 25 feet high. My goal

is that each sculpture is distinct. I feel the same tension

when creating a work regardless of the size — it’s the

scale that matters most.

Many of your works involve industrial materials like

steel, stainless steel and bronze. What influenced

this preference?

When I started out I had very limited resources, so I

used materials that were easy to find. And when I was in

college (university), there was a large pile of steel in the

studio. My professor, a very knowledgeable craftsman,

taught me to weld. I appreciated the strength of a weld,

which allows you to work with steel in a way that you

can’t with wood or plaster. Steel has a tensile strength

that gives me a certain freedom to make works that are

able to support the weight of the material and at the same

time, appear weightless. I also enjoy working with plaster

for the opposite reason — it’s easy to sculpt. And working

in plaster lead me to bronze. Plaster has a very appealing

aesthetic —delicate and yet strong.

Much of the metalwork is cut and finished by hand,

but what are some of the technological processes

used to create your work?

The foundry uses a more sophisticated technique for

welding. When I weld, I use raw steel and the most

unsophisticated welding method called arc welding. I like

the simplicity of it. It is very direct. When I work in the

foundry I have assistants because the process of working

in bronze or stainless steel is much more complicated.

“My works generally take a long time, and I think of them as very patient

explosions. And I think that contradiction ends up being a very significant

part of the process, of constantly recognising the contradiction.”

GALLERY & STUDIO 13

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GALLERY & STUDIO 14

How long does it take you to work on each sculpture?

It depends. Some monumental works take more than

two years to complete. But I don’t think about time, only

timelessness.

How do you hope your sculptures interact with

audiences?

What you hope for isn’t something that you necessarily

get. I’m glad when people take the time to look, and

that they’re open to looking long enough to maybe see

something they have not observed before.

Having done this for 35 years, what would you

regard as the highlight of your career?

It’s gratifying when your works get placed in important

public collections, such as in major cities or in museums

because people who are not necessarily in the position to

collect art have a chance to experience the work. They’ll

have the ability to live with your work without collecting

it.

In the end, what’s most important to me is that I have

the opportunity to continue working without having too

many restrictions.

What are some of the expectations you have of

yourself, given your depth of experience?

I would say that I don’t want to lose any of the rigour in

which I approach my work. I want to be very disciplined

and rigorous in pushing myself as far as I can go, and not

worrying about how the work is judged.

Do you have a particular way your studios are set

up, so that you can work in this way?

Obviously in the studio, there’s a certain way of

organisation. In sculpture, since there’s a physical process

you have to adhere to, it slows down the process to some

degree, and it’s not necessarily immediate. In my case,

my works generally take a long time, and I think of them

as very patient explosions. And I think that contradiction

ends up being a very significant part of the process, of

constantly recognising the contradiction.

Predominantly, in the last few years, I’ve had two

major studios—one in our country home in Normandy,

the one in the Basque region in Spain, between Bilbao

and San Sebastian, where there is a foundry where they

essentially created a studio for me to work at. It just

depends on the project and there is no logic to it. I like

the idea by being constantly surrounded by different

cultures; to be an American artist leaving France to work

in Spain.

LXXXI

GALLERY & STUDIO 15

spotlight

Star Appeal

The recent Prudential Eye Awards show may have thrown the spotlight on some of

Asia’s best emerging artists, but it was the exhibition of the nominees’ work and on-going

showcase of Singaporean contemporary art at the ArtScience Museum that really stood out

words jonathan tan Photos Prudential S inGaPore eye; Marina Bay SandS

With the glitz and glamour befitting an

awards show you’d find on television,

18 of Asia’s most promising artists were

recognised at the Prudential Eye Awards on January

20 at Marina Bay Sands. In its second iteration, this

year’s Prudential Eye Awards, saw 13 awards given out

with six categories recognising the Best Emerging Artist

using mediums like digital/video, drawing, installation,

painting, photography and sculpture.

A total of 18 artists from around Asia had been

nominated for each of the six artist categories, with each

winner taking home a trophy and US$20,000 in prize

money. An overall Best Emerging Artist prize, which

yielded a US$50,000 prize in addition to a solo exhibition

at the Saatchi Gallery in London, went to the colourful

Japanese collective, Chim↑Pom. The group had also taken

the prize for Best Emerging Artist using Digital/Video.

Comprising six members, Ushiro Ryuta, Hayashi

Yasutaka, Ellie, Okada Masatake, Inaoka Motumo

and Mizuno Toshinori, Chim↑Pom had come into

prominence for their performances and interventions

made in response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear

plant disaster in 2011. Much of their work comments

on Japanese society with humour, wit and melancholy.

Niru Ratnam, director of the Prudential Eye Programme

described Chim↑Pom’s work as “relevant, bucking

tradition, transcending national boundaries and relevant

both in and beyond Asia,” while Serenella Ciclitira,

founder of the Prudential Eye Programme said, “the

judging process generated a healthy debate and we had a

great set of winners.” For the full list of winners, please

read the sidebar story.

1. Overall Emerging Artist of the YearChim Pom (Japan)

2. InstallationDonna Ong (Singapore)

3. Digital/VideoChim Pom (Japan)

4. DrawingMithu Sen (India)

5. PaintingChristine Ay Tjoe (Indonesia)

6. PhotographySherman Ong (Malaysia)

7. SculptureMeekyoung Shin (South Korea)

PruDenTial eYe aWarD 2015 Winners:

8. Lifetime Achievement Award for Asian Contemporary Art

Gu Wenda

9. Best Gallery Supporting Emerging Asian Contemporary Art

FuturePerfect

10. Best Writing on Asian Contemporary ArtViet Le

11. Best Asian Contemporary Art InstitutionAsia Art Archive

12. Best Exhibition of Asian Contemporary Art‘No Country: Contemporary Art for South andSoutheast Asia’

13. Award for Visual Culture South Korea

Beyond The Blue by Jane Lee, 2012


in detailin detail

seeing is BelievingThe awards might have come and gone, but the stellar work by the 18

nominees is still on display at the ArtScience Museum from now till

March 31. Walking around the Prudential Eye Awards exhibition, one

can expect to experience an immersive sensory bonanza that showcases

the talent here in Asia. As you enter the exhibition space, Indonesian

sculptor Ichwan Noor’s ‘Beetle Sphere’ greets you, hinting at the scope of

what’s to come. From subtle works like Mithu Sen’s watercolour drawings

around the exhibition space, to Donna Ong’s eerie installation ‘Sing O

Barren Woman’, and Iranian artist Amir Hossein Zanjani’s diptych,

‘Submission to Power’, you’d find yourself suitably entertained.

THe singaPore eYeAdjacent to the Awards exhibition, the Prudential Singapore Eye

exhibition offers a survey of Singapore’s contemporary visual arts scene

with 40 artworks by 17 local artists displayed. Curated by Serenella

Ciclitira (founder, the Prudential Eye Programme), Honor Harger

(executive director of the ArtScience Museum), Nigel Hurst (CEO of the

Saatchi Gallery) and Tan Boon Hui (curator and festival programmer),

the exhibition features artwork in mediums like installation, photography,

painting and interactive media. Most notably, the urban vibrancy that

characterises Singapore’s culture and landscape finds itself coming to

the forefront. Don’t miss out on Lee Wen’s ‘Ping Pong Go-Round’, Chen

Sai Hua Kuan’s ‘Bottles and Fans’ sound installation, Angela Chong’s ‘3D

Tic-Tac-Toe’ interactive light sculpture, Mintio’s ‘Concrete Euphoria’

series of photographs and Jane Lee’s ‘Beyond the Blue’ and ‘Turned Out’

paintings.

The exhibition might be limited by space, but those keen on a more

detailed look at the Singapore contemporary visual arts scene would

find the book, Singapore Eye: Contemporary Singapore Art very useful.

Edited by Serenella Ciclitira, the book traces the development of the

local contemporary art scene with profiles and artwork images for the

60 Singaporean artists featured. It is available at the ArtSciene museum

shop and at leading bookstores.

The Singapore Eye exhibition will be running from now till June 28. With

support from Prudential, visitors can enjoy free entry to the exhibition every first

Monday of each month. For more information, please visit Singaporeeye.com

Jane

Lee

, Tur

ned

Out

Ping Pong Go-Round by Lee Wen, 2013


in detail in detail

Breaking New Ground

Instrumental in getting ceramics accepted as a contemporary art form, Paris-

based Belgian artist Johan Creten continues to be the willing wanderer, travelling

far and wide to turn clay and bronze into art

words n ina Starr Photos Galerie Perrotin

GALLERY & STUDIO 21

Raptors, roosters, rays, squid, squirrels, monkeys,

butterflies, bees – Johan Creten’s world is pop-

ulated by a veritable menagerie of mythical wild

creatures. Instead of imitating nature’s realism, he’s fo-

cused on capturing the qualities with which they’re com-

monly associated and linking them to his oeuvre’s central

themes – nature, the female form, human relationships,

power, politics and spirituality – such as the monumental

owls in The Vivisector that face one another in all their

wisdom like an assembly of Egyptian gods about to pass

judgment.

Creten’s sculptures are veritable shape-shifters in

terms of form, medium and meaning depending on the

viewing angle, light or context in which they’re exhibited.

Take for example his 4.5-metre-high bronze Pliny’s

Sorrow that metamorphoses from eagle to cormorant,

detailing the complex relationship between power and

vulnerability; it hints at ecological disaster as the bird

with outspread, broken wings appears soaked in oil.

His works are hardly literal, encouraging audiences to

look deeper to uncover hidden meanings and complex

metaphors about man and the human condition.

Born in 1963 in Sint-Truiden, Belgium, Creten saw

art as a way to escape from the narrow-mindedness of

provincial life. He recalls, “When I was a kid, it was clear

I was an artist and an outsider in that community. I was

a skinny, small boy who loved classical music, books

and art, so at school I got beaten up until the moment I

understood that I could make things. At one point, when

a bully was going to hit me, I took this thing and I said,

‘Watch out or it is going to haunt you tonight in your

dreams.’ And it worked. So art became a way to survive.

It’s still a way to survive and to express myself.”

In the 1980s, he studied painting at the Fine Arts

Academy in Ghent. Being non-conformist, Creten

gravitated to the school’s unpopular ceramics atelier

(as conceptual and minimal art was preferred at the

time) where he discovered clay—a damp and dirty, yet

sensual material that connected with him. He explains.

“Clay is a very loaded material because it’s the earth we

walk on. In many cultures, it’s called Mother Earth. It’s

a sacred material but, at the same time, it’s the poorest

of materials. It’s basically human waste, so normally the

people who work with clay are the dumbest and poorest

people: labourers, farmers, road workers and potters.

God took clay and turned it into the first human being,

and when you put this material through fire, it turns by

magic into something very resistant and beautiful.”

Paving the way for younger artists, perhaps Creten’s

greatest achievement has been to elevate the status of

ceramics from craft to fine art. He was among the first to

have deliberately eliminated the boundaries between the

disciplines of sculpture and ceramics, choosing instead

to make a name as an artist instead of a ceramicist, and

exhibiting in art galleries and museums. “In Europe when

I started, ceramics in art was considered taboo,” he notes.

“It was something for women or for applied arts, and

you couldn’t make a sculpture using ceramics because

that wasn’t done, so, for years, I was in a very difficult

position because nobody wanted to show my work. From

the beginning, I’ve always said, ‘I’m not a ceramicist – I

don’t know anything about clay. I’m a sculptor.’ So I’ve

always only accepted shows that were about sculpture.

But in the last 10 years, there’s been a lot of change: lots

of young artists now use ceramics.”

Creten’s studio in northeast Paris overlooks the

Ourcq canal. Littered with his clay and bronze models

and sculptures, ancient art pieces, books and furniture

from places like Japan, Indonesia, India, Afghanistan,

the studio is like a sanctuary which he escapes to work

alone with his thoughts, rarely welcoming visitors. It’s

small and impractical, but he loves watching the boats

ply the waterway as if in Venice or Amsterdam and out

of Paris. He asks me to take a seat on an artwork, Les

Amants, l’Oeil Argent, a 80-kilogramme patinated and

polished bronze sculpture mounted on wheels, depicting

intertwining animals, shaped like lovers. Discussing his

most recent solo show entitled Fireworks that ended

last November at Galerie Perrotin in Hong Kong, he

compares his sculptures made from fire to the explosions

inside each one of us and in society at large like the

pro-democracy protests that raged on in the city, forcing

visitors to traverse barricades to see his exhibition.

Paris may be a base, but Creten has worked on the

move for 25 years (earning him the moniker of “clay

gypsy”), moving from one atelier to another, be it artist

GALLERY & STUDIO 23

spotlight

residencies or exhibitions, each time adding to his

knowledge as he explores new clays, glazes and types of

firing. His work absorbs the essence of each location as

he learns from the people he meets. He’s worked out of

studios in New York, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nice and

the Villa Medici in Rome, staying anywhere from three

months to three years. In each place, he rediscovered

and reused techniques that had fallen out of favour or

materials forgotten for centuries like the glazes at the

Sèvres national porcelain factory near Paris (the cleaning

lady had led him to untouched boxes of glaze samples

through a hole in the wall under the manufacture’s roof),

and even invented new ones.

Creten makes it a point to form his art himself to

exploit its potential so that each clay sculpture carries his

fingerprints. Each glaze is done personally by hand with

Creten diligently following through the different stages

of creation. The standout feature? Works that embrace

“all the things that you shouldn’t do in ceramics.” His

finished pieces incorporate all the imperfections –

hairline cracks, fractures and deformations – that occur

during the firing process. Being self-taught allowed him

to “do forbidden things” considered sacrilege in terms of

classical ceramics: his glazes crawl, shiver, blister, drip,

scar and can be rough and messy.

Now after popularising ceramics as an art form, Creten

has turned his attention to bronze as a way to counter

the current appetite for ceramics. Take for instance his

ambitious solo exhibition of mainly bronze using the

lost wax technique, which took place last summer at

the Middelheim Museum sculpture park in Antwerp,

Belgium. Bronze was fashionable until the 1980s when

it became taboo, deemed too expensive, bourgeois,

historical and physically and symbolically heavy.

In recent years, it’s experienced a revival, and Creten

swears upon a foundry in Flanders, Belgium, that he

scoured the world to find and wishes to keep anonymous,

its artisans able to combine an ancestral savoir-faire

with state-of-the-art technology. He does, however, let

me in on a secret: he’s working on the final stages of a

1.30-metre-tall cast and patinated bronze sculpture of a

monkey called God is a Stranger, the latest addition to his

modern day menagerie.


GALLERY & STUDIO 29

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GALLERY & STUDIO 28

An Eye FOR BEAUTY

Making a quick pit-stop in town ahead of the Prudential Singapore Eye Awards,

Nigel Hurst, gallery director and chief executive of the Saatchi Gallery, talks to

Gallery & Studio about contemporary art’s growing popularity, art as investment

and how Singaporean artists have got him excited

words jonathan tan Photos Saatchi Gallery

art is rapidly growing in prominence worldwide.

What do you think is driving its popularity?

To tell the truth, the reasons don’t interest me too much. The most important thing is that people collect it. If you ask most artists if they’re concerned about what collectors collect, they’re not. The most important thing now is that there’s a broad spectrum of people collecting art for all kinds of different reasons. That’s why there is a global art industry now; because art has become a legitimate career choice. And if there’s one thing that Saatchi Gallery has always wanted to do, through our partnership with the partnership with Parallel Contemporary art and Prudential Group and the Eye programme with initiatives like the Singapore Eye, is to legitimise, for a wider audience, the creation and collecting of art.

That said, a lot of the work the artists are making now is a lot more accessible because the artists are dealing with motifs and issues that the general public is aware of and having their own thoughts about.

saatchi gallery is well known as a platform for

emerging artists from around the world. What are

the qualities you look out for when exhibiting an

artist, and how do you decide whether or not to

exhibit them?

I think there’s a responsibility, primarily to the

exhibition and to the audience. I think primarily, we do art, not artists. I don’t mean that to sound dismissive or cruel in any way. You need a very clear idea why you’re having an exhibition, why you’re working out how artworks will work together, and how artists will work together in terms of forming the exhibition.

The point is really looking at the work that’s being made and thinking, first of all, how best to create an exhibition that serves as a broad introduction to the work that’s being made;

Nigel Hurst

\

What would happen when this art bubble bursts?

Well the bubble used to pop quite regularly. In the West, the art market was always the litmus test if you’re going to go into a recession or not because it was always the first thing to go. Whereas now, despite the global (economic) downturn and recession we’ve had in Europe and America since 2008, the one market that’s remained very strong throughout, particularly the high-end, it’s been art. That’s the first time it’s happened. Now, I can’t say for sure. Contemporary art is so diverse, appealing to

different people on so many levels. Does this make

the art pieces harder to collect?

Yes and no. There are far more artists now than there used to be and there’s far more interest now than there used to be. But that’s what creates the buzz around it. Artists are also being increasingly concerned with their immediate landscape, which is usually urban. So references, icons, source material are very familiar with the people that they’re living in the same city as.

What tips would you offer to someone keen on

starting a contemporary art collection?

Buy art you like. The wonderful thing about buying contemporary art is that you could collect it for all kinds of different reasons. Generally, you’re buying something that you’d want to live with and

and how to bring that work to a wider audience comprising both art enthusiasts and hopefully international collectors as well.

How do you find these emerging artists?

We reach out to a large network of individuals who are individuals who are familiar with the art scene. It really makes sure you got a broad introduction to all the possibility and also the diversity of the practice within a particular region. And then we select from there.

At the Saatchi Gallery, people understand fairly quickly that you’re part of an organisation that’s either buying contemporary art or showing contemporary art. So a lot of the work comes to you. It’s not so much about trawling through studios because you’ve already seen a lot of the work when it gets sent to you. I’m not suggesting that it takes the place of seeing the work in the flesh, but it’s a really useful filtering process.

What is your opinion on asia in the global

contemporary art scene?

Asia’s an interesting region. I never come to an area thinking about how art in Korea compares to art in China, or how art in Indonesia compares to art in Singapore and Malaysia.

If I look at all the regions we’ve been to with the Eye programme, there seems to be the least

number of paintings here in Singapore, which is interesting. And I think that’s because students here probably have a less formal education whereas in Malaysia, for example, they have quite a traditional schooling in terms of drawing, painting and sculpture.

Artists in Singapore seem to be engaging in digital far more early in their career and finding different ways of expressing themselves. There may be a genuine international dialogue with the Internet as artists can see each other’s work and communicate, but these different regions still keep their unique flavours in terms of scale, interest and preoccupation.

One thing that’s quite volatile for artists is that while there are active art scenes in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, a lot of the collecting is very local. So when you have any kind of economic difficulty within a particular zone, those artists can go from feast to famine very quickly.

What are your thoughts on art as the new blue chip

commodity for the wealthy to invest in?

People collect art for very different reasons. If you look at most art collectors, they’re usually people who have made their wealth through something else. Anybody going into collecting art as a way of making a living would have to be a very brave person indeed.

maybe see as a result of your travels. Some of the most interesting collections are the ones people live with. It forms part of your personality. That seems to be the most sensible way of collecting, rather than hoarding and sticking it into storage. Some collectors collect in a rigorous way, for others, it becomes a habit. What were some of the highlights of the Prudential

eye awards and exhibition?

I’ve been excited learning more about Singapore art and impressed by the diversity of the work. A lot of it is media focused, reflecting the digital age which we live in. Interesting cross-overs between sculpture and installation whereby a lot of the work isn’t necessarily site-specific, yet it isn’t necessarily formal sculpture. It seems to be sculpture made out of different elements that change each time it’s shown.

as a curator for the Prudential singapore eye

awards and exhibition, what were some of the

narratives/themes/qualities you were looking out

for? We always come to this with a very open mind and we never quite know what we’re going to find. Wherever you go, there’s always work that’s worth seeing and there’s always more of it worth seeing than you think there’s going to be. It’s always a very pleasant voyage of discovery.

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Leading LadiesGallery & Studio throws the spotlight on 6 women in

Singapore’s bustling art scene

words jonathan tan Photos eddie teo & artiStS

“I enjoy psychology and sociology, and I like to see

how people respond to art,” answers Cheryl Ho, the

head of her own art consultancy business, Articulate

Consulting, when asked what drew her into the

mesmerising world of art. “It’s a really big draw because

everybody reacts so differently. They see what they want

to see and that’s really interesting to me.”

And it’s been more than 10 years since the jovial

Singaporean first started working in the arts, cutting

her teeth right from the beginning so as to learn as

much as she could from different perspectives while

in school. “I took on as many roles as possible within

auction houses, commercial galleries, museums and

independent art projects. This proved to be immensely

helpful in learning to understand how the industry

works!” she explains.

Among her many roles, she recalls picking up

valuable skills working with notable names in the art

world, like Sotheby’s and Opera Gallery. “One of my

very first jobs was as an auction assistant in Sotheby’s

during my early school years, and I could not have asked

for a better start. I spent several years with the auction

team, and learnt the importance of what it meant to be

professional, efficient and discreet. I also experienced

first-hand how crucial it was to build long-lasting

relationships with collectors, and this was a quality

which I later continued to develop during the 6 years I

spent in Opera Gallery,” she shares.

Taking time off a hectic year end schedule to meet us

at home, the jovial 33-year-old reveals her role as an art

consultant, the challenges of the job and what it’s like

working with new emerging artists.

Tell us more about how your role as an art

consultant?

I think of art consulting as being a form of facilitation.

My primary role is to assist clients with collection

management. This means that I help them to acquire

and sell works based on their needs. For example, if

a young collector is interested in building a portfolio

consisting of emerging and investment-worthy artists, I

would make suitable recommendations based on his/her

preferences, and keep him/her updated about trends

and movements within the industry. Many collectors I

work with have a deep interest in art, but very simply

do not have the time to navigate the art world. As a

consultant, my role is to do all the due diligence and

help them to source for works which would ultimately

lead to a strong and coherent collection which increases

in value over time. Very often, I will also have access to

art which is only available in the private market, which

is very exciting for collectors.

What’s been the most satisfying aspect about your

job?

Helping a client build a collection that truly

means something to them. Every art collection is a

small reflection of someone’s personal journey, so it’s

really lovely when they develop their own style and

preferences.

Cheryl Ho Art Consultant

GALLERY & STUDIO 35

focus

Sometimes you never really know how the collector

is going to react when you present something for

consideration. It is truly a beautiful moment when you

see a connection between the collector and the work,

and for me, that’s always been really satisfying.

What’s the most challenging part of your job?

I travel extensively, but it’s difficult to try and do

everything and be everywhere all the time. Time is

such a limited resource, and as much as I would like

to attend every international art fair and exhibition, and

meet every artist, it’s just not going to happen. I have to

be very selective about how I spend my time.

How do you judge an artist’s work to be good

enough to recommend to your clients?

A lot of it is based on instinct and experience. When

you spend as much time as I do around art in every way,

shape and form, you start to develop an “eye”. A lot of

recommendations are also made based on how well you

understand your client’s taste and preferences.

It’s important to develop a sense of what the

collector might like, but it’s also just as crucial to

them occasionally. Art is such a fluid subject, and by

introducing selections which might not always be

immediately obvious choices, it creates greater dialogue

and conversation between the consultant and collector,

ultimately leading to a better partnership.

What do you look out for when deciding which

artists to work with?

Over the years, I have gravitated towards working

with modern and contemporary art and this continues

to be a key market for me. But one of the most exciting

genres is undoubtedly the emerging market: there is

so much energy and potential here which remains

untapped.

I do not have a physical gallery space, so I don’t

represent artists or work with them in a conventional

way. I do however work with several galleries to help

them to decide which artists to represent. I spend a lot

of time sourcing for dynamic artists, so it’s always lovely

to get to know them and start a conversation about

how I could help to increase their visibility through a

steady platform. Many artists have also approached me

to help with managing their portfolios and to assist with

organising exhibitions, and I hope that this will take

place soon.

“Every art collection is a small reflection of someone’s personal journey, so it’s

really lovely when they develop their own style and preferences”

focus

GALLERY & STUDIO 36

“This career in art began out of love,” shares Veronica

Howe, the chief art consultant at One East Asia, as

she recounts how her decision to leave a successful

corporate career, with a French luxury cosmetics brand,

to pursue a second degree in art history had been against

her parents’ wishes. “They had said no as my career had

been going well. I remember that my dad had not even

sent me off when I first left, although they’ve come to

realise that art isn’t fashionable, and that it should be

cultural.” Interestingly, Howe credits her interest in the

arts to her businessman father’s influence, sharing fond

memories of him playing the piano and teaching her

how to paint.

It might have been a leap of faith into what was then

uncharted territory, but Howe has since established

herself well. The affable 51-year-old shares that her

niche lies in Southeast Asian art. A personal interest that

had been nurtured by her experiences with it. “Being

Singaporean, I’ve lived here and I grew up being exposed

to art and I studied it at the University of California in

America.” To her, “appreciating art is about listening,

loving and learning,” and she often travels to visit artists

in their studios, “to understand and know what makes

this artist tick,” she explains. Given that much of her

work involves promoting Southeast Asian art overseas in

cities like London, a deeper understanding of the artists

she works with definitely helps. That said, she does

admit that whether or not an artist has that X-factor

to succeed remains intuitive, “It’s hard to describe this

essence. Sometimes it’s just a feeling, that this guy is

special. And after monitoring him for one to three years,

you’d be able to see his style, his tenacity and then you’d

know there’s something special about him.”

Ahead of a busy travelling schedule, Howe shares

with us what got her hooked on the arts, what she looks

out for when deciding which artists to work with and

how magical her journey has been.

How did you fall in love with art?

I was nine-years-old when my dad taught me how to

draw and paint. I was very fascinated by the stroke of

his pen and how easily he could transfer objects onto

a plain piece of paper and the spectrum of colours he

used were so psychedelic! I remember him saying: ‘You

must always draw what you see, and paint (or colour)

only what you feel’.

Can you tell us more about how your role at one

east asia?

Since the inception of One East Asia in 2010, I had

spearheaded the gallery’s programmes and produced

exhibitions with interesting and unforgettable stories to

tell. I also help the organisation to foster professional

relationships with different partners, institutions

and companies, particularly in London, to promote

Southeast Asian art internationally.

How did you get started in this role?

Mr. Daniel Komala, founder and non-executive

chairman of One East Asia shared his vision of an art

Veronica Howe Art Consultant

Make-up: Laura MercierGALLERY & STUDIO 39

focus

I will always ask the artists what success means to them.

Because to me, success is not always just monetary. For new

artists, it’s best to have a firm foundation.

With so much exposure to art works from around

the world, what kind of art are you particularly

drawn to?

Appreciating art, any kind of art, is an on-going, exciting

journey. I am drawn into paintings that go beyond joy.

So in five, perhaps ten years, they still give a sense of

timeless contentment.

Who are your top 3 favourite artists at the moment

and why?

I have four. American Peter Steinhauer. A true social

documentary photographer who does not compromise on

standards or production. He is very meticulous and even

produces all the prints personally. I know he selflessly waits

over days to capture a moment, climbs a mountain just to

look at a view. No one documents culture in Asia like he does.

Singaporean Jane Lee. An amazing artist who has

stretched the boundaries of abstract art into 3-D

sculptural forms.

Filipino Andres Barrioquinto. A rising star who is so

humble – with an ability to tell so many stories in one

painting.

Japanese Mai Miyake. Mai is most well-known for

her kakejuku scroll work. She juxtaposes contemporary

subject matter on these traditional scrolls and the result

is rather intriguing. I enjoy the way she uniquely blends

and translates the spirit and humour of the Japanese

people/culture past into the language of the present.

if there could be one word to sum up your journey

in art, what would it be? Why?

Magical. When you are running out of words, then you

turn to art. Art connects and expands the dots. It opens

up doors to new possibilities for it’s the only universal

(unspoken) language!

gallery that encompasses education on a fun learning

curve to make collectors or heart-landers alike to enjoy art

through experience. I was wowed by that unconventional

way of telling a story.

What’s been the most satisfying aspect about your

work as a consultant?

To see my Western collectors collecting Southeast Asian

art confidently.

What’s the most challenging part of your job?

To let people understand and see the differences between

decorative art, handicrafts, what is art for investment’s

sake and what is art for collecting. Fine art collecting, art

with a capital letter ‘A’, has a value to it.

How do you decide which artists to work with?

Whether established or newbie artists, there are three factors:

Enthusiasm. Besides the work, the artist must also have the

desire to go beyond his kampong. If an artist settles in a comfort

zone, he or she will always just be a champion in his kampong

and won’t desire to travel overseas.

Faith. There must be faith in the platform, One East Asia,

that he will be able to reach out to a new audience like collectors.

This is because artists can’t just rely on just one collector to

sustain them.

Running the extra mile. When an artist is not afraid to fail.

You’d be able to run the extra mile with them. When an artist is

willing to do more, and they say ‘I can do this, money is not the

main priority here’, they show a certain zest for what they do and

that’s when you’d really be able to push things forward.

“Appreciating art is about listening, loving and learning”


“I think naturally, I’m a very boring person. I’m

okay with going to the same cafes and having the

same kind of food every day. Art has forced me to

be a more well-rounded, a better person than I would

have normally been,” explains 36-year-old installation

artist Donna Ong when asked how art has influenced

her life. The journey into art might have been a giant

leap of faith, but it was a choice that Ong knew she’d

wanted. “I had an epiphany in Australia and realised

that art came a lot easier to me than architecture did,”

she shares when Gallery & Studio caught up with her

in her studio at the Goodman Arts Centre. “It was

scary to move across (from Architecture to Art) but I

was thinking about what would it be like when I was 40

years old and I meet my friends on the street. I didn’t

want to be the sort of person who’d give a blasé response

when asked about my work. I wanted to be able to say

that I love what I do.”

If that decision had been regarded as a gamble,

it was one that has since paid off as Ong had been a

National Arts Council Young Artist Award winner back

in 2009. At press time, Ong had just picked up the

Best Emerging Artist using Installation at Prudential

Singapore Eye Awards, which saw her take home a cool

US$20,000. “I think they’re really helpful, a certain way

to measure your progress or your career as an artist.

They’re also like milestones for various stages in your

career,” quips the cheerful artist. Had she not won, “it

doesn’t really matter. Artists get so many rejections all

the time,” she says candidly.

In between travelling extensively for work and

preparing for her Prudential Singapore Eye exhibition,

we caught up with Ong for a quick chat about what

inspires her creativity, weighs on her mind, and how the

details in her work draw audiences in.


I’ve always been in touch with art because my father

(Michael Ong) was an artist. It’s something that’s

always at the back of my mind as I’ve been surrounded

by artworks. I guess he was always quite the positive

influence on my life. When I went to school, I did art

for my ‘A’Levels and it seemed to be the thing that I

wanted to play and make something out of.

Can you tell us more about your art practice and

the mediums you work with?

I work a lot with found objects in the genre of installation

art. So installation art is fun for me because it’s linked

to sculpture, just bigger. It’s a participatory experience. I

always found that it gave a lot to the audience and that I

was passionate about. I make fantasy environments and

worlds that people can enter into.

are there any preferences for the kind of materials

you like to work with?

I like to use found objects because I’m a bit of a control

freak and I’m very meticulous. So this forces me to

respond to something that’s outside my comfort zone

because sometimes a found object creates problems

Donna OngArtist

GALLERY & STUDIO 43

focus

that you solve. Sometimes you introduce new elements

that complement the aesthetic. So it’s also a way of

creating aesthetic choices that complement the art

piece. A lot of the work is trial and error.

What are some of the key themes/narratives you

explore in your work?

I work a lot with themes of hope or potential, and

also imagination and childhood. More recently, its

archetypal landscapes, which is linked to childhood. As

a child, I’d imagine things that didn’t exist. Now as an

adult, I still am interested in this theme. When I was

older and first saw landscapes, I guess I was surprised

at how similar they were to what I imagined and yet how

different they were. I was interested in this kind of gap:

where is the similarity and where is the gap? We always

have an idea of what landscapes might be, like what a

cave or forest would look like. And in my work, I try to

make that kind of landscape—almost like an archetypal

one that we can recognise.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I used to read a lot of Enid Blyton and about English

landscapes. As children, we don’t get to go out a lot;

so much of our play and activity is around the house.

And I’d imagine the things I read about. We didn’t have

landscapes and we didn’t have gardens, so I’d imagine

these things.

What’s been the most challenging part of your

work as an artist?

I think the toughest thing is the waste and my

conscience. I think art is something that produces a lot

of waste, and that is something that always weighs on

my mind. For example, if you have an exhibition and

you need a black room, they’d provide a black carpet,

Cocoon

The Meeting

GALLERY & STUDIO 44

“It has been a bit of a wander, a bit like going doing into the forest and taking

different paths. That seems to be my experience as an artist. It’s not the

normal, straight yellow brick road”

her work is just so heartfelt. Some of her works make

you feel, ‘Yeah, that’s why there needs to be art’. Pierre

Huyghe is a recent person whom I’ve grown to like. I

think the way he works is very clever, in terms of how

he manages his career. He doesn’t make money from

art itself, but he makes money from exhibitions. He

doesn’t sell anything, which frees you from the pressure

of making work that will last or can be collected.

That sounds like a lot of stress on its own.

It a bit unrealistic, but sometimes collectors expect it

to last for a hundred years. We use new materials, so

we’re not sure how plastic is going to last, or how glue

will last.

if you could sum up your journey in art with one

word, what would it be? Why?

One of my favourite quotations is ‘Not all who wander

are lost’, so I’d say Wandering. I think that it has been a

bit of a wander, a bit like going doing into the forest and

taking different paths. That seems to be my experience

as an artist. It’s not the normal, straight yellow brick road.

Can you tell us more about your upcoming projects?

I’ve an upcoming exhibition in New York where I’ll be

showing ‘The Forest Speaks Back’ and then I’m working

on a new (yet unnamed) piece as well. I’m looking at

showing it in October, although I might push it back

later as I’m feeling a little stressed at the moment. And

I’ll also have to finish up some old projects I owe. With

every artwork, there’s a lot of excess material, so I’d like

to just use them up and clear the stage for new ones.

I’m also working on a film at the moment. It’s like

an art film. I’ve made one using 18th and 19th Century

prints of the forest. I’m interested in exploring where

our images come from, because visually, we don’t

really paint images of our tropical forests, so much of

the images are depicted form the west. I’ve also been

travelling a lot to Europe, taking pictures of greenhouse

forests. That will be another film. It will be shown in

March at the Singapore Art Museum.

a black ceiling and all that. All this becomes waste at

the end of the exhibition. Over the years, I’ve had a lot

of exhibitions, and at the end of them, a lot of waste.

So the guilt becomes so much I just feel like I’m killing

the world and being very irresponsible. Recycling isn’t

a theme of my work, but I just wanted to be bit more

responsible in the things that I do.

What’s been the most satisfying aspect about it?

There’s so many things. I love the way I get to produce

things that I like, and explore any sort of topic. One

time I could pretend to be a scientist and explore

biology. The next time I could be a geologist.

But my favourite part is really the people in the

arts community. They’re very genuine, very kind, very

passionate and very authentic. There are always people

willing to sponsor you with money, or residencies or

trips to go overseas and get inspiration. People seem to

be more open and receptive when it comes to art. It’s

also been really fun getting to know different people as

you work together on installations.

How do you hope audiences interact with your

work?

Books and films were like a way out, an escape from

reality. I want my artworks to be like that. The average

attention span for art ranges from 10 to 20 seconds.

We’re very quick to look at a piece and think we

understand it. I use a lot of detail in my work to draw

people in. So the closer they go, the more they’ll see.

And the more they see, the more they understand. So

I want the artwork to reward them. I’d hide things in

the details or I’d hide things underneath tables so that

if they explore it, they’ll find the little details. They’ll be

rewarded for their time.

Who are your top 3 favourite artists and why?

Sophie Calle, Pierre Huyghe, Ilya Kabakov and Ann

Hamilton. I guess Ann Hamilton and Ilya Kabakov were

the first installation artists that I saw and their works

really moved me. I thought that it was something I’d

like to get into and they’ve been a huge influence on the

way I think about installation. Sophie Calle, because


spotlight

Galerie Belvedere’s director Rasina Rubin might

have studied law at the University of Bristol,

and at the Inns of Court School of Law,

where she was trained as a barrister and was called

to the English Bar, but she’s always had an affinity

with art. “My mother was instrumental in exposing

my brother and myself to art,” she shares. “We would

read up on artists and spent hours wandering around

in the museums. I suppose you could say that, as an

art historian herself, it was inevitable that she would

influence me.”

Rubin also credits spending part of her childhood

in Belgium (where her parents worked) was a catalyst

for her relationship with art. Upon completing her ‘A’

Levels at the Roedean School in Brighton, Rubin shared

that she had further pursued the interest in culture and

the arts at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, where she

studied Art and French Civilisation. During that time,

she also revealed that many weekends were spent in

museums and visiting galleries.

A passionate advocate for the gallery’s work, Rubin

patiently obliged this writer’s questions about Galerie

Belvedere’s history. And as she shared the details

about the gallery’s establishment in March 1996 by

Mrs Jaya Mohideen, to the many public installations

and corporate collaborations that have become icons

(such as Swiss artist Kurt Laurenz Metzler’s colourful

sculpture, ‘Urban People’, installed outside Orchard

ION), and the ‘Best of Asian Art’ exhibition that was on-

going during our visit, the pride she takes in the gallery’s

work and heritage is unmistakable, after all it is one of

the stalwarts in an increasingly energetic local art scene.

Taking time off her busy schedule ahead of the

Singapore Art Week, Rubin shares with us her journey

with art.


I have always been interested in art from an early age,

quite possibly from the age of 5. My interest in art was

really cultivated when I was 11 years old when I went to

live in Belgium with my parents. There, I started visiting

museums in Belgium and Paris and was immersed in

works by great Flemish and Dutch artists such as

Rubens, Pieter Bruegel and Rembrandt.

Tell us more about your involvement with galerie

Belvedere. How did you get started?

I have been involved in the gallery business from as early

as 1999. I was living in London at the time and travelled

to Valencia, Spain to meet with renowned Spanish artist

Juan Ripolles whom we represent. The gallery was in

the midst of a corporate commission then and we went

to inspect the sculpture which was in progress. I met a

lot of artists at that time and started to understand the

nature of the business and the mechanics and process

of handling corporate commissions.

I joined the gallery full time towards the end of 2008

after spending some time in London where I attended

the ground-breaking Damien Hirst auction ‘Beautiful

Inside My Head Forever’ and met several prominent

artists including Hirst himself.

Rasina RubinGallerist

focus

GALLERY & STUDIO 49

Can you tell us more about how your role as a

gallery director?

I travel frequently, meeting with established artists

and discovering new talents. We brought Barcelona-

based Lorenzo Quinn (son of Hollywood actor Anthony

Quinn) to Singapore when we installed two of his works

at The Marina Barrage in 2008. We also represent

leading Swiss artists such as Kurt Laurenz Metzler and

we conceptualised and installed the avant garde set of

sculptures “Urban People” at the ION Orchard in 2009.

We represent several leading British artists, including

sculptors from the Royal Academy. We were the first

gallery in Singapore to bring in artists from the RA.

Who are your top 3 favourite artists at the moment

(or all time) and why?

Kurt Laurenz Metzler and Juan Ripolles whom we

represent are my favourite artists at the moment. They

are Maestros. Metzler’s avant garde sculptures are found

throughout Zurich, in private and public collections all

over Europe and in corporate collections. Ripolles has

always had a strong international collector base but

now very excitingly a museum will be established in his

name in Shanghai.

if there could be one word to sum up your journey

in art, what would it be? and why?

Dynamic. Every day is a new day and our gallery has

become such an exciting place to discover new talents,

to rediscover maestros and to meet like-minded

collectors. There is always a sense of dynamism and

vigour. I love that. Art has a pulse and as a gallerist

you are responsible in a way for that energy in the art

market.

“There is always a sense of dynamism and vigour. I love that. Art has a pulse and

as a gallerist you are responsible in a way for that energy in the art market.”

GALLERY & STUDIO 50

Contrary to her preference for working with

everyday objects in the creation of her art

pieces, Dawn Ng’s oeuvre of work is anything

but ordinary. Many of us would remember news of a

large white rabbit suddenly appearing in the heart of

Singapore’s urban landscapes. That was Walter, one of

the 32-year-old’s most well-known solo projects. In a

way, the ingredients were simple—a large float sculpture

placed in the city—but the effect had a far deeper

outreach. It made us pause to look and appreciate

our surroundings, and in the process, “discover the

extraordinary in the everyday” with a childlike curiosity.

And come March, Walter will be making its rounds

on an international stage—with stops at two museums

in France to coincide with the Singapore-themed Art

Paris Art Fair that will be taking place in the Grand

Palais in the French capital. There, Ong’s latest body

of work, ‘A Thing of Beauty’, recently exhibited at Chan

Hampe Galleries (see pictures), will be exhibited.

“I think these simple things really form the fabric

of my growing up and my becoming an adult. Quite

naturally, I subconsciously draw from them and use

them in my work. I’m very interested in the everyday

and ordinary. I think there is world beyond worlds in

something that you just take for granted on the surface

and I’m interested in peeling back those layers and

helping people find something beautiful in what would

be the invisible normal,” explains Ng, when asked about

the appeal of simplicity.

In between outbursts of laughter as these photos

were being taken, the cheery artist delves into the

details of her practice, the emotion in colours and how

she finds balance amidst the madness.


I am not sure if I fell in love with it. I chose it; I wanted

it; but mainly because I was interested in telling stories.

I’m drawn to stories are embedded in the truth. I think

that the truth is always interesting and telling it with

simple things helps people look at it in a way that’s

almost like a child again.

Can you tell us more about your art practice and

the medium(s) you work with?

I am a multi-media visual artist. I work with all sorts of

mediums — paper, paint, photography, the list goes on.

When I was in college, I focused only on painting but I

bear no allegiance to any one form today. I think every

artwork or story demands its own means of coming to

life.

Do you have a favourite?

No I don’t. I think that keeps my practice exciting for

me. I’m find myself still young in my practice and in my

career, and I’m excited by having each project as sort of

an adventure with a certain material and what kind of

story that material can tell.

What are some of the key themes/narratives you

explore in your work?

Memory, time and identity.

Dawn NgArtist

GALLERY & STUDIO 53

focus

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I don’t draw inspiration from any one person or thing,

but I find endless fascination in bits and pieces of

everything. I do travel a lot and when I’m away, I do

meet other artists and look at the work presented in

galleries. I think there’s a certain zeitgeist in an era

that people are interested in, topics that are bubbling

up. Beyond the art world, I do a lot of wandering and a

lot of strange things. I also do a fair bit of art research.

Having done a fine arts and journalism double-major, I

do pick off the back of that and really study the artists

I’m interested in.

How far are you influenced by trends?

I think everyone is, whether they’re conscious of it or

not. You can’t escape the environment you’re in and

everything affects the way you do, what you see, what

you read. We are just a product of our time and I think

it’s interesting that every artist has her own version of

the story.

Tell us more about colours in your latest work.

They’re very colourful, yet very subtle.

Yes, I’m starting to just realise that. It’s funny because

my favourite colour is white, which is a non-colour. But

maybe deep inside me, it’s just like a rainbow. I find

colours interesting to play with. I think people have a

very simplistic understanding of colour. But we always

simplify them, when there is a multitude of shades in a

colour like blue. There are worlds within worlds that I

want to peel back and stare into. The use of colour in

very important in this work (A Thing of Beauty) because

although the images are sort of flat and immediate, it is

an image that keeps on revealing itself in the same way

the colour white has so many shades within it.

Colours are very emotional, they speak to you without

words.

How does space fit into the way you develop your

ideas?

I usually do what I want to do and figure out how it’ll fit

into the space later. But I do like to work with both very

small and very large works.

“I think there is world beyond worlds in something that you just take for granted

on the surface and I’m interested in peeling back those layers and helping people

find something beautiful in what would be the invisible normal”

GALLERY & STUDIO 54

focus

How particular are you about doing everything on

your own?

Very. But as I wanted to concentrate on the

choreography and the building of things for ‘A Thing of

Beauty’, I really didn’t want to fuss too much on being

the one to press the button.

What’s been the most challenging part of your

work as an artist?

Finding any kind of balance. I am just starting to find

my own method in the madness. Projects of a larger

scale demand more than just an idea. It involves a

team of people—assistants, photographers, and other

people—coming together to help you realise what you

thought of. In that management of that bigger system,

to get everyone on the same page, it can be challenging.

And because you know this is not a nine-to-five job,

it can be a very unhealthy lifestyle (sleeping very very

late, waking up at 4am and coming back to the studio

to obsess over things, fixing things) when it’s exhibition

time or when it’s a solo.

How difficult is it to know when a particular piece

is complete?

I actually had a conversation with an architect friend

about it recently. It is the eternal question and for me,

it’s very instinctive. I’d know when it’s not right, and

when it’s not quite done. It’s just that you’re not settled

with it and I keep fussing with it. Sometimes, pieces

complete themselves and I feel like I’m just along for

the ride. It’s something that’s not really in your control.

Sometimes mistakes lead you to a better outcome,

a better form and texture of what you’re working on.

Sometimes it’s just an internal settlement when you

look at a piece, it clicks together.

What’s been the most satisfying?

The next blank page.


work?

I never consider them.

so what do you think about while you’re at work?

A lot of things. When you’re at work, you think about

everything and nothing at the same time. But there

are times when I’m really into something, I lose track

of time and the hours can just fly by and suddenly it’s

night. I don’t even know what I was thinking of. I was

just thinking about how do I make it work, whether

some compositions are better than other, whether some

colours work or not, what is the story, whether things

have an integrity, whether they have a truth in it, does it

seamlessly come together.

it sounds like things can get quite intense.

Yes they do, and sometimes my husband would call me

to make sure that I’ve eaten. He’ll come and drop-off

stuff he ta bao-ed.

Does he stay to keep you company at work?

He doesn’t because he’s tried to, but he says that I’ve not

a single chair in the office and they’re so uncomfortable

so he just leaves me be.

Who are your top 3 favourite artists and why?

Right now? Baldessari, Shapiro, Basquiat. Ideas, scale, velocity.

What do you look out for when you observe other

art pieces?

The sense of the sublime. What I mean when I say

that, is something that is immediately moving even if

you may not know why. Something that is bigger than

yourself, something that make your eyes re-calibrate

and understand something that you’ve not seen before.

These are a few things that I find drawn to within other

people’s work.

if you could sum up your journey in art with one

word, what would it be? Why?

Beginning. I like beginnings. Everything is possible at

the beginning.

Can you tell us more about your upcoming

projects?

The next blank page.

Green


Discerning Art Buying for the Uninitiatedwords Veronica howe Photos one eaSt aSia

Upon embarking upon any new endeavour, it

is always prudent to heed a word of advice.

Especially if you’re planning on joining the

ranks of art buyers, whether for investment or love,

consider the following:

The difference between collection and investment

Art Collection tells a story about a collector. It’s about

buying what one likes. It’s very personal. Art Investment

tells a portfolio of an investor. It’s about one’s strategy

in buying and selling art to make profit. It’s strictly

business or sheer prestige, nothing personal.

Regardless of either intention, how much would you

need to get started on your journey? There’s no formula

that would give u the exact amount to start with as any

amount would do. However, for the sake of discussion

lisTenIn order to get a sense of what is available on the

art market, listen to the opinions of other collectors

and connoisseurs. You may do this through attending

exhibition openings, art events and art talks. Who

collects the art or artists could be a good indicator of

the artist’s potential.

When you discover an artist who has piqued your

interest, find out as much as you can about them. For

example, research the track record of the artist. Have

they won any significant art prize awards, national

decorations, or better still, international recognitions?

Speak with their gallerist or representative to learn

more about their future plans for any upcoming solo

or group exhibitions, or international exposure through

participation at art fairs. The answers to these questions

are telling indicators of whether an artist’s career can

go the distance, and whether their work has long-term

potential.

Experienced gallerists and art consultants will be

able to help you grow your collection by supplying

professional expertise on different artists. They will

also ensure that deals are transparent i.e. the variables

of any transaction are clearly stated upfront. I must

add, however, do not disregard a “young” gallery if

its representative or dealer is reputable with a long-

standing professional track record working with artists.

The relationship between gallerist and artist is in fact

the essence in gaining sound knowledge about the work

of art in question. It’s the basic ingredient in building

collector’s confidence and trust.

Questions? Ask anything you feel like asking. There

isn’t such a thing as stupid question when it comes to

buying art.

lookVisit art museums, established art galleries, renowned

art fairs and auction houses to familiarise yourself with

the diversity of artworks. Look at as much of an artist’s

work as you can to best understand his or her artistic

development.

While the internet is a wonderful research resource,

purchases should ideally be conducted within a physical

gallery space. Nevertheless, I recognise the growing

popularity of online art transactions. In such situations,

it would be wise to ask for a condition report of the

artwork juxtaposed against a high-resolution image of

it to enable close examination and ensure that what

you see is indeed what you get. Many have bought

pieces based on online photographs only to be sorely

disappointed. Seeing is believing!

loveEvery so often you might find yourself drawn to

something immediately, only for the initial impact to

fade shortly after. Do make sure that it feels like “falling

in love” before you buy the artwork it. Remember: even

if it’s purely for investment, chances are that it will be

adorning your wall for a while. Look past the transient

and identify a work you feel will give you enjoyment and

a sense of timeless contentment.

About the author: Veronica Howe has been an active

art consultant-gallerist for the past 18 years. She is

currently chief art consultant with One East Asia,

Singapore.

THe THree lsIn order to decide on how and what to buy, consider these factors: Listen, Look, Love.

here, setting aside US$5,000 ($6,700) looks like a

reasonable amount to take your first step into art

collecting. This is a good starting price for somebody

new to investing in art, realistic enough to be paid in

cash or cheque without the need to break the bank.

There are innumerable promising artists with works

priced within said range, especially emerging names

from Southeast Asia. One such example is Thai

artist Anchalee Arayapongpanit, a two-time winner

of the Panasonic Contemporary Painting Exhibition

(2013, 2012) in Thailand who recently attracted

active interest from bidders at a local auction. While

her works eventually sold for $7,320, there are many

other available pieces that could be bought within said

budget.

20 by Anchalee Arayapongpanit, 2011 eye shadows by Anchalee Arayapongpanit, 2013


InspiredInspired

“I often feel like I am in transition. I was born in

the countryside but my parents moved to Jakarta

when I was in elementary school for a better life,”

reveals artist Entang Wiharso, who was born in Tegal,

in Central Java, Indonesia. “I moved back and forth

between the city and home to help them out in their

shop. I was the fifth child out of nine children. I used

to think I would have a big family myself but after two,

I think I have enough on my hands!”

Despite the larger-than-life artworks weaving ancient

Bold and Borderless

Renowned for his large-scale paintings, wall sculptures and installations, Entang

Wiharso, one of Indonesia’s most active artists, has represented Indonesia at many

prestigious showcases, including the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. We catch up

with the man during his residency at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute

words el izaBeth Gan Photos StPi

narrative tools and contemporary materials that the

47-year-old Wiharso is known for, conversing with the

man feels neighbourly as he affably shares his thoughts

about life and art-making since graduating from the

Indonesian Institute of Arts back in 1987.

Living and working between Rhode Island, USA and

Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Wiharso exhibits extensively,

with a formidable solo exhibition at Arndt last year and

participation in Art Stage.

GALLERY & STUDIO 60

How would you describe your art?

I believe deeply in borderless art. While I am known

as an Indonesian artist, I don’t see myself making art

because of my nationality nor for any specific audience.

I do often wish I were a global citizen. It is the system

imposing identities and encouraging differences amongst

people in order to run efficiently. As an artist, I hope

to transcend such categorisations. For me, art is deeply

personal which can be of resonance to the collective

consciousness, thereby speaking a universal language. In

many ways, my art is also autobiographical.

How did this residency happen?

I have known of STPI when it first started in the early

2000s as I live a short drive away from Kenneth Tyler on

Rhode Island, USA. I was invited two years ago and the

rest is history.

Is this the first time you are working so extensively

with prints?

Not quite. In 1997, I collaborated with my wife, who

works primarily through the medium of printmaking,

on a UN Human Rights Project. That exhibition saw us

working on 60 prints using the woodcut technique but

yes, it has been quite a while since I worked with prints.

What you have been up to?

With STPI, I have had the luxury of working with a

wonderful team of 12, which is quite big for a residency!

The actualising of my ideas is quite complicated because

I believe in bringing-to-and-taking-from the residency.

This means taking inspiration from the space of the

studio, the people I interact with and the materials

available to me, while bringing my personal experiences,

interests and memories all together in the process of

creating. It’s intimidating to face so many unknowns but

I am motivated to work hard. We have been working on

about 40-50 pieces so far, with materials such as acrylic,

paper pulp, wires and nails. Only a selection will make

it into the gallery for the exhibition in April.

Can you tell us some of your deepest impressions

that has permeated your art making?

Upon graduating from art school, my first exhibition

was a two-man show. Then, I consulted a teacher whom

I deeply respected and he left me with an indelible

reminder that no matter what I did, I had to find my own

style and reflect if it was done with a sincere heartbeat

in the process.

Growing up during the collapse of the Suharto

dictatorship, there was so much change and anxiety

around me. There was a kind of watchfulness whenever

people started talking about politics. It definitely

impacted society psychologically, people were vulnerable

and fearful. I have been using the motif of eyes embedded

in my art pieces for some time now. From afar, one does

not notice these eyes. But upon closer examination… I

suppose each person can decide what they feel about it.

Entang Wiharso’s new body of work will be exhibited at

STPI in April 2015.

Never Give up

untitled

GALLERY & STUDIO 63

spotlight

As these mythical, otherworldly images of

nature would suggest, Canadian-born Texas-

based artist Ysabel LeMay has an intimate,

almost spiritual connection with the natural world

around her.

She describes the practice of bringing these natural

worlds to life as ‘hypercollage’, “a highly instinctual and

organic process that allows each piece to dictate its own

destiny.” She explains, “From a single, simple starting

point — an image, a colour, an emotion — I follow a

meticulous process.”

“First I isolate and extract elements of my photos,

which allow me to get in touch with the essence and

individuality of each plant. They all have their own

energetic impact and provoke in us a particular emotion.

I then weave these fragments together into intricate

compositions,” she elaborates.

“I connected with the power of nature at a very

young age,” shares the 48-year-old artist. “My parents

have a cabin on a very isolated patch of land up north

of Quebec City. We used to spend some weekends away

from the civilized world, and were immersed in the

beautiful, wild landscape. Our time there was all about

pleasures and adventures in the woods. The land had

an impact on my family’s spirit. A more harmonious and

playful energy was bringing us together. To this day, I

associate nature with joy.”

But while an affinity for nature was apparent, her

journey in art took a slight detour before her current

devotion. Studying illustration and graphic design in

college had been LeMay’s way of avoiding the rigours of

academics. And living in a small town meant that much

of her exposure to art was through art books, which

she referred to for inspiration as a graphic designer. “I

started in advertising at 19, a very young age. First as

a graphic designer, but I rapidly made my way up to

become an art director and, finally, creative director.

For the last nine years of this career, I was the owner

of an advertising agency. This is where I really learned

the skills of self-management and discipline, which are

essential to my life as an artist,” she shares.

The turning point came when LeMay turned 30.

Despite being at the peak of her career in advertising,

she felt unfulfilled creatively. Recalling that period

in her life, she reveals, “I took a sabbatical year and

travelled the globe on my own. On the last month of

that beautiful journey, I was in Campomoro, Corsica,

where I did my first fasting. I had many revelations

about myself during that time and understood then the

new path I needed to take — fine arts.”

Since then, it’s been an amazing journey of discovery

and new experiences that the artist has not looked back

from. She tells us more about the transformative power

of art on her life, how she developed her practice and

the exciting things lined up for her this year.

The Power of Naivety

For creative director turned artist Ysabel LeMay, art is an instinctive, life-long

journey of discovery that fuels her passion

words jonathan tan Photos ySaBel leMay

Arcadia

Ysabel at work


spotlightspotlight


What made me fall in love with art was the emotional

charge I felt during my visits to certain exhibitions. I

realised how transformative art could be in someone’s

life. Being able to observe beauty, grace and intelligence

through artists’ works makes me want to be better,

stronger and smarter. It sparks my passion.

What made you transit from painting into

photography?

Painting was a vigorous eight years of training. When I

started, I intended to study painting as a tool to expand

my creativity. I was then in the process of creating three

lines of jewellery. I had found a private teacher and

through his very charismatic teaching, I left everything

behind and went head-first in the art world, and became

a full-time painter. The teacher became my husband.

Those years were very fulfilling but also extremely

often, the results are magic’.

Tell us more about how nature inspires you and how

you see it.

I see nature through my holographic lenses. I am

first taken by its splendour. Then I connect with its

energy field, which opens the gate of information

and knowledge where creative thoughts manifest. By

allowing its energy to run through me, I first perceive

and then visually demonstrate the magic of the living

world.

My interaction with nature allows me to understand

more deeply my communion with it and others, and I

believe its primordial power can help lift our collective

consciousness. To quote Einstein, ‘Look deep into

nature, and then you will understand everything better’.

What fuels your creativity?

demanding. I often felt overwhelmed by the technical

challenges, and my creativity was suffering. I didn’t

realise I hated painting until a photographer friend

of mine lent me his camera. A month later, I showed

him my first two pieces, ‘The Seed’ and ‘Genesis’. His

reaction was very revealing. He graciously gave me his

camera and offered me to let me borrow any equipment

I needed for my future projects. I instantly dropped the

brushes and went full-force in photography.

How did you develop your practice of Photocollage?

At the early stage, my lack of photography technique,

my immense enthusiasm, naivety, and the many

accidents during production of the work and many years

of training as a painter were the initial building blocks

of my practice. I would say, ‘Do not underestimate the

genius power of naivety behind your first works. A lack

of technical skill forces you to be more creative and

Joyful moments, a healthy lifestyle, constant movement

are just a few of my inspirations. I also get inspired when

I place myself in a position of receptivity; placing myself

in a position where I can receive ideas and improvise

with them. Again, my work is highly instinctual,

something sets the tone and I go from there.

Can you tell us more about the emotional energy in

your art pieces?

In the same way an artwork can have a powerful and

transformative impact on me, I am dedicated to offering

the same energetic impact through each of my works.

By using beauty and wonder in my imagery, I intend to

capture people’s attention and give them a space where

they can reflect and feel their individual connection

with the living world.

How long does it take you to make each art piece?

Phenomena


I like to answer this question by saying, 48 years! That’s

how long it took me to be able to visually demonstrate

the dialogue I have with nature. To have an authentic

voice is to offer an original story that can touch people’s

hearts.

Technically, it takes me about five weeks to create

one composition, but that’s without counting the many

hours spent traveling and developing my personal image

bank. Ninety-nine per cent of the elements you see in

my work were photographed by me.

What’s the most challenging aspect about your

work?

The long hours sitting in front of my computer,

the isolation, and the demanding schedule. As

spontaneous as I try to be, it is becoming harder. I

have no choice but to be highly organised. Everything

must be planned in advance for me to have the space

to create.

Which other artists do you really admire?

I was once incredibly rewarded by seeing the art of

another particular artist. His name is Jerome Martin.

When I saw his exhibition at the Montreal Museum of

Contemporary Art a few years back, his work had such

intelligence and beauty that I understood at that precise

moment what I wanted to do with my life.


work?

I hope my work offers a space were the viewer can

connect with their higher self, the part that we have in

each of us that makes us realise our dreams and inspire

people along the way.

Can you tell us more about your ongoing series

titled ‘gracia’?

‘Gracia’ denotes something beloved, elegant, and also

the giving of thanks. My photographs are my personal

way of giving thanks to nature, interconnected energy

What’s been the most memorable piece you’ve made?

So far, it would be the latest mural I made for

Bloomingdale’s. I was hired to spend five days in the

Redwood Forest in Northern California documenting

the flora and fauna to create a mural that would be

installed in their store in Stanford, California. It is

impossible to describe with words the feelings that

washed over me when I was in the middle of the

majestic giant Redwood trees. At the same time colossal

and elementary, peaceful and lively, those surroundings

provided a sense of wonder, humility and reverence.

I could not help but thinking that these monumental

trees were communicating with one another through

their complex network of roots and the rustling of

their leaves, like an immortal council pondering, with

ancient wisdom, the eternal passing of time. I created

a magisterial cathedral made of all the elements of the

land. This work is a true act of reverence to the divinity

of the giants.

and organic intelligence.

2015 is shaping up to be a busy year for you. Can

you tell us more about your upcoming exhibitions?

I will be focusing my attention on a few solo exhibitions.

First in Boston, in early March, at the Lanoue Gallery.

Then in May at the Catherine Edelman Gallery in

Chicago. You will also be able to see my work at AIPAD

in New York. As well, I was selected to represent the

state of Texas in the upcoming exhibition Organic

Matters - Women to Watch, June to September 2015

at The National Museum of Women in the Arts in

Washington.

I have also allied myself with the District 3 Innovation

Centre of Montreal’s Concordia University, to explore

and build 3D augmented-reality and video installations

of my work. This is one of my biggest dreams and

it’s starting to manifest. 2015 will be all about the

exploration of movement in my work.

Cosmic NurseryVenus


spotlightspotlight

It’s nine in the morning Chicago time, while in

Singapore, it’s almost midnight. Sandro Miller,

photographer of many famous faces, answers the

call brightly and calmly. Describing his morning, which

started off with an hour-long workout and meditation

session, you could almost picture him raring to go.

For five consecutive years, he has been voted one

of the top 200 advertising photographers in juried

competition within the industry. But to get a clear view

of the 57-year-old’s work, you need to look at his vast

portfolio built over a 40-year career. From behind the

camera, he has worked with actors like Al Pacino, as

well as sports heroes Muhammad Ali and Michael

Jordan. He has also produced films. Butterflies, the

short video featuring actor John Malkovich, won him

the Saatchi & Saatchi Best New Director Award at the

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in

2011. Most recently, in November 2014, he won the

International Photographer of the Year Award given by

the Lucie Foundation.

‘Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to

Photographic Masters’ is yet another result of his 17-

year friendship with the Hollywood actor. In the series,

Miller recreates the photographs that have inspired and

moved him through the years. Recalling seeing Irving

Penn’s 1957 photograph of Pablo Picasso for the first

time when he was 16, “it was the day my whole life

changed, and I knew that I wanted to create beautiful

and powerful portraiture,” shares Miller.

Restaging photographs like Penn’s Pablo Picasso,

Herb Ritts’s Jack Nicholson and Yousuf Karsh’s Ernest

Hemingway, it’s as if Malkovich had morphed and

gotten lost in the characters. Whatever the 62-year-old

actor had done on screen in films like Empire of the

Sun and Of Mice and Men to Transformers: Dark of the

Moon, he brought to still photography.

“John was so wonderful to work with. He is an absolute

genius, and such a professional. He understands his

body, his face and his expressions so well. I have to say

that the most fun to recreate was Diane Arbus’s twins

shot,” he says.

“I think the most fun was watching John change his

mood and transform himself from the little girl who had

fear and hesitation into the little girl who was excited,

full of joy and curiosity. To watch him change in just a

matter of seconds was so unbelievable,” shares Miller.

In Arbus’ photograph, the wall meets the floor at an

angle, and is higher on the left than the right. The twins

are dressed similarly, but one smiles with apprehension

while the other’s open smile reaches her eyes. “We

worked with an amazing set builder who built a set that

looked almost like the wall that Diane Arbus shot in

New Jersey in 1967,” he says, pointing out details like

the wall and paint-splattered floor.

A Master’s Tribute

In his latest collaboration with his muse, actor John Malkovich, photographer

Sandro Miller pays homage to iconic photographs. Gallery & Studio chats

with the photographer about the exhibition entitled Malkovich, Malkovich,

Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters – and other things that have been

keeping him busy

words roSSara jaMil Photos Sandro Miller courteSy of catherine edelMan Gallery, chicaGo

John Malkovich as Che Guevara, originally shot by Alberto Korda GALLERY & STUDIO 73

spotlight

John Malkovich as the Twins, original photo by Diane ArbusJohn Malkovich as the Joker, original photo by Herb Ritts

The work that went into recreating that shot and the

others – 32 photographs were on show at the exhibition

at Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago – was

meticulous and painstaking. He roped in stylist Leslie

Pace, builder Angela Finney, and hair and makeup

expert Randy Wilder for the project.

“The shoot was over a three-day period and then

there was a fourth day, all 15-hour days. The actual

work for the project took over a year,” he says. “We had

to research every single shot, figure out exactly how it

was shot, what kind of film it was shot on and what

kind of camera it was shot on. We had to figure out the

wardrobe, the clothing and really take a close up look at

details like the hair and beard.”

That of Migrant Mother, according to Miller, was the

most difficult to recreate. It wasn’t only in duplicating the

clothing of the era, when Dorothea Lange photographed

migrant worker Florence Owens Thompson and her

children in 1936. “The most difficult part of that shot

was working with the children and directing them to

stand very, very still. What I was trying to do was match

very, very closely how the children were in the shot.

That took the most patience, and was the longest to

shoot and by far the most difficult,” he explains.

While getting the set, clothing and lighting right was

the first and crucial part of the process, Miller also

made use of modern technology at his disposal. An

example was the photograph of Malkovich as Einstein.

The gritty, grainy feel of the photograph was recreated

during post production.

Miller, who is self-taught, has built a collection of

more than 800 photography books. He still treasures

the first photography book he bought, Irving Penn’s

Passage. To Miller, picking out the iconic images for the

“All of these images that I recreated have moved me throughout my career.

They are images that continually pop into my head; that I feel, are so

powerful, they changed my thoughts of what portraiture can be.”

John Malkovich as Marilyn Monroe, original artwork by Andy Warhol

John Malkovich as Marilyn Monroe, original photo by Bert SternGALLERY & STUDIO 76

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project wasn’t the hard part; it was leaving some of them

out. “There were two images I really wanted to do, but

was so disappointed that I couldn’t. They were Mary

Ellen Mark’s photograph of the elephant trainer in the

circus and Richard Avedon’s work with elephants. There

was absolutely no elephant in Chicago and the whole

Midwest.”

“All of these images that I recreated have moved me

throughout my career. They are images that continually

pop into my head; that I feel, are so powerful, they

changed my thoughts of what portraiture can be.

Portraiture can be so educational. It can be such an

amazing storyteller of one person’s life in just an instant.

A photograph can tell you so much about a person,” he

says.

His passion for the medium is something he is keen on

imparting. And he dedicates time to teaching in colleges

and workshops. Miller says, “It’s in inspiring our young

photographers and students, to really make a difference

to their lives and make something click in their brains,

that they too can have a career in photography. I think,

as we get older and we have the wisdom, we’re here to

teach and we’re here to help. Today, my biggest joy is

to pass on my knowledge and love for photography to

others.”

In addition to working with his clients and teaching,

he continually challenges himself with new projects. In

2013, he travelled to Morocco and produced portraits

of over 200 local tradesmen, snake charmers, nomads

and fossil diggers. That, and a documentary project on

top of upcoming exhibitions, makes Miller a very, very

busy man indeed.

Sandro Miller

John Malkovich as the Migrant Mother, original photo by Dorothea Lange

GALLERY & STUDIO 79

spotlight

What got you started with art collecting?

Henry Gomez (HG): We love art for what it is. For me,

I started collecting art over 15 years ago and it became

like a disease. Our earliest works (collected) were by

graffiti artist Jose Parla because we like his raw style.

We started with one, but as we got to know the artist

personally, that relationship grew, and we wanted to

support the artist by collecting his work. One thing

led to another and right now, we buy art at the art fairs

we’ve been to, and even online.

Having developed such a close relationships with

an artist like Jose Parla, whom you collect, how

does it feel when you’ve got a work that’s specially

created for you?

Serena Adsit (SA): Jose Parla actually did a tattoo for

Henry. So that’s how close it actually feels, to have his

art on your body instead of just in your home.

HG: (Pointing to tattoo on arm) This is actually the

name of our older son Rui. I had casually shared with

Jose that I was thinking of getting a new tattoo, and

being a fan of his calligraphy, I asked if he could do

something for me. As his friend and one of his biggest

collectors, he said that he’d try. I didn’t want to push

him, but after six months, he sent me an email saying

that he’s sorry, but hadn’t forgotten about it. He’s very

busy after being commissioned to do work on the new

World Trade Centre in New York, but he sent me a few

variations.

SA: He had taken so long to develop the design, even

asking for measurements of Henry’s arm; which shows

the characteristics of a true artists—the meticulousness

and attention to detail.

HG: After six to seven months, he was finally satisfied

with the design. And being so particular, he made sure

that I picked the right tattoo artist to do the piece

for me. I couldn’t just pick anyone because I’ve now

become a walking billboard for him. But there really

is a special bond with this as it was a lot for Jose to

do this. I may not be sure how much it meant to him,

but it meant a lot to me, especially since it’s my son’s

name. Currently, work in progress: Jose is working on

something for Serena.

SA: At the end of the day, it’s more than just a buyer-

seller relationship because we’d really want to know

them as well. Whenever they’re in town, we’d invite the

artists to hang out with us.

What are some other favourites you have in your

collection?

SA: Honestly, every piece of art is inspiring once you

find out the story behind it. In this house, I’m drawn

to the Miaz Brother’s piece. I think using spray paint to

create a portrait is beautiful yet simple at the same time,

yet so hard to create.

HG: Every piece is a favourite. It’s just such a sad

thing that there’s no place we could find that we could

have everything put on display. So, the pieces are all

in storage. For example, some of the pieces here might

have been bought for years, but I’ve only seen them

An irresistible passion

Art collectors Henry Gomez and Serena Adsit offer Gallery & Studio a glimpse at

their new home and tells us how their passion for collecting art has evolved into

something that’s literally more than just skin deep

words jonathan tan Photos eddie teo

Henry Gomez and Serena AdsitGALLERY & STUDIO 81

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three months ago, when we just moved to this new

place. Other than that, the only glimpse of my collection

would be when it’s shipped to Singapore, and opened up

for my inspection in the office and for a quick photo.

After that, it’s packed up and moved straight to storage.

How do you get to know about new artists and work

that you could add to your collection?

HG: It’s a small circle so a lot of galleries, artists and

dealers know you. They’d be telling you about new

artists. So in a way, you can’t stop because you’re always

exposed and seeing these very interesting artworks. And

the beauty of this is the price points of young artists.

With a price range of US$10,000 to US$20,000, it’s

kind of affordable. That’s how we started with the

collection. And now that we’ve formed one up, we want

to keep adding to it.

so, how many pieces do you have in your collection?

HG: In the hundreds. I really wouldn’t know, although

we did discuss the possibility of creating a catalogue.

How would you describe the pieces in your

collection?

HG: I think it’s very abstract. I think the collection grew

from street art to abstract and very slowly, figurative. If

we were to pin-point our interest at the moment, it’s in

colour field paintings now. We’re also getting more into

figurative paintings, like the Miaz Brothers piece here,

which is an image of what one of them, who is short-

sighted, sees.

The collection is very global. It had started out based

on European and American art. Funnily enough, we

didn’t go into collecting Chinese and Indonesian artists,

and instead went the other way. It could have been my

growing up, and where I had been educated in. But I’m

slowly coming back to it.

SA: I think it’s also about the economics of it. It’s

diverse because we’d want to think about the favourite

pieces we like—from renowned artists, to new artists, to

changing focus, like sculpture instead of just paintings

and photography. So it’s like a big portfolio. Then,

there’s the investment aspect: what it’s worth, what it

could be worth.

What kind of homework do you put in before

buying an artwork?

HG: We usually trust the gallery owners. It’s a hell of an

effort to walk around an art fair like Art Stage.

There is a reason why you buy a certain piece.

Sometimes it’s the story, sometimes it’s the artist. For

example the James Hugonin piece here. He’s an English

painter who can only do one piece a year. So in his 20-

year career, he’s only got 18 pieces. Even though I don’t

know the guy, the gallery had told me that it was a piece

that should be in my collection.

But the right thing to do would be to understand the

artist’s technique and why he creates his or her artpiece

in a certain way. Subsequently, you would have to go and

see the painting up close, maybe even see it a few times

at different times of the day, and with someone. Never

buy a painting to decorate your home, or to match your

couch, it should be the other way around. The artist

is also the most important person. Whoever the gallery

owner is, that’s secondary; he’s just the middleman in

the transaction. And when the artist begins talking to

you, you’d understand more.

These are the basics. It’s really fine and dandy if

you’re buying works that cost below $10,000. But

then there’s a difference if you’re buying art that costs

significantly more, say a 100 grand. There’s the added

angle where you wouldn’t want to lose your investment.

Your research then goes beyond just knowing the artist

and his technique. It goes into the artist’s career; what

he/she has done; the price points—have they been

controlled, or have they been stirred up by the market.

A lot of new young artists today have become million-

dollar artists within two years or so. Because of limited

supply, and important collectors are buying those works,

demand and supply comes into force. And when there’s

A pair of Amir Nikravan paintings adorn the bedroom wall. Abstract painitngs line the available wall space in their home. A Miaz Brothers figurative painting sits prominently on the wall.

spotlight spotlight


no supply, people would flock them on auction houses,

and the prices would become inflated, which could

eventually lead to the price crashing.

SA: For me, I’d love to get to know the artist, and we’d

host them whenever they’re in town. I like to humanise

the whole aspect of art buying, to know the artists

as people and learn more about their families, and if

they have children. It’s not just about picking their

brains about their work, or their techniques. That’s my

womanly touch.

HG: (Jokingly) Now, a lot of the art we can’t buy

because we’d need to come to an agreement, or I’d just

make the purchase first.

For an artist, how is having his/her artwork feature

in a private collection helpful?

HG: A lot of gallery owners want an artist to be in

certain collections. It adds a value to the artist him or

herself. Having collected art for such a long time, and

not having sold them on auction, our collection becomes

important. Especially for an artist whose gallery wants

to place him. It’ll either be in a museum or in a private

collection.

When the price of some of your art pieces increases,

would you consider selling them?

HG: Cashing-in is a vulgar word to use in the art world.

If people know that you’ve cashed-in, you’d never be

able to get more works. It is such a small little circle,

and whatever you do, everyone will know. So take for

example the two Amir Nikravan pieces I just got. If

within a year, it becomes available, everyone will know.

However in four to five years’ time, that’s usually the

peak of someone getting big, you could say that you’re

looking to upgrade your collection. Then, it’s perfectly

normal to sell some older works to make way for some

newer works.

SA: You’ve got to let the art mature.

HG: That’s also why when we buy art from an artist, we

don’t just buy one piece.

What’s been the best part about this collecting

journey?

SA: I like the travel, and getting to meet and know the

artist.

HG: Definitely getting to know the artists. But what’s

really nice and romantic, is that you are there with the

artists as they evolve and grow through their careers.

Being with them through every step of their careers is

really the most beautiful part. It’s really that personal

connection.

GALLERY & STUDIO 84

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It’s a warm, sunny December day in Miami during

Art Basel and the 28-year-old Los Angeles-based

graffiti artist who goes by the name of Alec

Monopoly has been keeping busy. He painted the

façade of the SLS Hotel and a giant duck poolside, a

double-decker bus and a fleet of supercars, unveiled a

series of new paintings — some on custom-made shaped

canvases that he’s working on for the first time — and

debuted Mini Monopz, a limited-edition toy sculpture

he designed in collaboration with Juan Faustin, creator

of toy upstart Expressalo. Initially launched in an

edition of 150, which will be followed by additional

versions and editions of the character in 2015, it marks

Monopoly’s first foray into sculpture and toy figure

releases.

When we meet, Monopoly is dressed all in black

sporting long gold chains and a top hat, echoing

his signature portrait of the moustached, tuxedoed

Monopoly board game character he’s best identified

with. He has done away with the bandana he usually

wears as a mask to protect his anonymity when he

carries out illegal street-tagging, where entire cities

become his temporary art gallery. Aware that he could

be arrested simply for putting work up in the streets,

he understands that this vulnerability is all part of the

game. “I can’t count on both hands how many times I’ve

been in trouble,” he relates. “You just accept it when

you start doing graffiti that it’s going to happen at some

point. It’s more about luck: at that time, a cop drives by

you. But I’ve shifted my focus to doing walls where I

have permission; where I can spend more time to define

the piece rather than just doing stupid tags.”

So who is the real Alec Monopoly? While his true

identity remains a mystery, chances are if you live in Los

Angeles, New York, Miami or London, you’ve probably

driven past one of his street murals featuring widely-

known, wealthy pop-culture figures from childhood,

like the Monopoly Man, Richie Rich or Uncle Scrooge,

or his interpretations of celebrity icons such as Michael

Jackson, Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson, Goldie Hawn

and Twiggy. He has also painted on Richard Corman’s

photographs of Madonna from the 1980s. His client

list includes Robert De Niro, Adrien Brody, Benicio del

Toro, Nobu Matsuhisa, David Blaine and Seth Rogen,

and his artworks today sell for between US$20,000 and

US$50,000. He says, “If I could just paint on walls all

MonopolyThe British may have Banksy, but on the other side of the pond, American street

artist Alec Monopoly is making waves with his special brand of graffiti art that

gives a fresh spin to the Monopoly board game character and other celebrity icons

words n ina Starr Photos alec MonoPoly, jaMeS Mackel and world red eye

M r .


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day long, that would be all I do, but I’m not selfish with

my work. It’s important to do canvas work because one

day the walls can be painted over or taken down, but

the canvas will live on forever. Painting on walls is more

fun for me because it’s exposed to everybody, not just

art collectors or enthusiasts. But my artwork is based

around my graffiti, so I’ll make a graffiti piece, then a

canvas.”

After first painting variations of the Monopoly Man

in 2008 when the economy crashed as a commentary

on capitalism, consumerism, corporate greed and the

scandals rocking the banking industry, there was an

immediate response that garnered Monopoly overnight

fame as it spoke to people. Art dealers and collectors

began contacting him to do shows. He recalls, “I was

playing Monopoly and watching the news, and I saw

Bernie Madoff being arrested. And it hit me, it was

like a light bulb and, that night, I started a canvas of

a Monopoly guy that I never finished. It’s a Monopoly

guy half-painted, and I went out on the street and

just started tagging the Monopoly guy. The response

was so quick. It was picked up on the Internet and in

magazines, so I just went crazy with it.”

There’s the Monopoly Man behind DJ turntables,

holding a can of spray paint, running off, flying away,

with empty pockets, crucified by Wall Street and

holding an umbrella (in reference to Hong Kong’s

recent pro-democracy protests, which he witnessed

firsthand). This led Monopoly to bring more of his

creative studio artwork onto the streets, as before that

he was just tagging and skateboarding. Today, he has

fully appropriated the character, which has come to

symbolise the artist himself, representative of success

and achieving one’s goals, thereby serving as a source of

inspiration to young people. He divulges, “I like painting

for my own happiness. Graffiti is my true passion and I

like seeing the reaction of people when they walk by my

work and it inspires them. Kids start painting because

of me. I like putting a positive message out there that

makes people happy.”

Scr

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Pas

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Mon

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Bon

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GALLERY & STUDIO 88

Alec Monopoly in his studio working on Monopoly Gifts Goldie

Born in 1986 in New York City (where graffiti has a

rich history), the college dropout has been drawing and

painting for as long as he can remember, as his mother is

an artist, and he began tagging from the age of 12. “My

mom is a classical style painter, who does oil paintings,”

he notes. “When I was learning to write and spell, I was

learning to draw, so when people ask me how long I have

been doing art, I can’t even remember because it’s been

my whole life. My grandmother was an amazing painter,

too. I come from a long line of painters. Growing up in

New York, in middle school, every kid has his tag. It’s part

of New York culture, like skateboarding, so I was doing

straight graffiti and tags. But I knew my whole life that

I was going to be an artist. Ever since I was a little kid, I

just wanted to be an artist.”

When Monopoly moved to Los Angeles in 2006, he

met fashion photographer Michel Comte who invited

him to live and work in his mansion in the hills above

Sunset Boulevard. He states, “LA was where I really

was inspired by street art. It has grown to be one of the

number one street art cities in the world, together with

Berlin, so I was fortunate to choose it as my headquarters.

It’s a great city for me because there are so many walls,

being so spread out. In New York, there’s the NYPD

vandal squad that just looks for graffiti. That’s one of the

reasons I moved to LA, to get out of that, relax and spend

more time on my graffiti pieces. There are a lot bigger

issues in LA, so they’re not as worried about graffiti. I’ve

been painting on Melrose, my favourite place to paint in

LA, and the cops literally stopped, looked at me and just

kept going. And now the city has embraced me. I started

doing graffiti illegally all over the city; today, I get offered

walls all over the place.”

For his canvases, Monopoly works out of his Beverly

Hills studio. “It’s a big open space with a lot of bright light,

half inside and half outside because I’m always using

spray paint,” he says. “It’s always a crazy mess because

I move so quickly. I have really bad attention-deficit

disorder so I work on three or four different paintings

at once. I get bored with something and start working

on another. I make maybe 70 art pieces per year. I like

making each piece myself. I have one assistant here and

there but, most of the time, it’s just me. So that’s a way

I limit myself, because I’m making them all myself.” He

uses spray paint, acrylic, resin and newspaper clippings

from the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal for

most of his work, with ladders and lifts for large murals.

While the actual painting of a mural may require a day

or two, coming up with the concept can take months.

Monopoly stands out for his unconventional graffiti

style that is colourful, happy and positive rather than

a gritty, underground representation in a part of the art

world associated with crime and vandalism. The pop

art nature of his work sees him referencing popular

culture, ranging from the movie character Travis Bickle

in Taxi Driver to Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans,

as he wants people to relate to his images in the aim of

appealing to the masses worldwide and not just street

art fans. “The streets are my main inspiration, looking

at other graffiti pieces, advertisements, what’s going on

in pop culture,” he explains. “I also study a lot of old

artists. Dali is one of my big inspirations, but I really

enjoy Picasso, Keith Haring and Basquiat because they

were graffiti artists as well who transferred to fine art.”

American financier, entrepreneur and producer Marc

Bell, who collects Monopoly’s art and bankrolled his

exhibition during Art Basel together with Marc Leder,

comments, “I love the look of graffiti art, and that

mixed with childhood icons such as Richie Rich and

the Monopoly Man makes Alec’s work so much fun to

look at.”

Having done gallery shows since 2008, Monopoly is

concentrating on Asia in 2015. His next exhibition will

be held at Armani/Aqua in Hong Kong in March during

Art Basel (his first solo show in Hong Kong), where he

will unveil a selection of new works made specifically

for the city, followed by an installation in a brand-new

restaurant-nightclub at Chijmes in Singapore set to open

in March by the owners of boutique bar, House of Dandy.

On 2 May, he will open his first-ever solo museum show

at MOCA Bangkok (the first Western artist to be given a

solo exhibition there), featuring installations, sculptures

and a major live performance on-site, where he will

paint an entire room of the museum. His first-ever

solo exhibition in Jakarta, Indonesia, will take place in

September at Glitch Gallery. An exciting collaboration

with a well-known American high street fashion label

will also be announced soon.

Mini Monopz Angel Monopoly


Who are some of the notable artists in singapore?

There are so many that it’s almost impossible to name

even a few. Whether or not they stay artists 10 years

from now, it’s still a big question mark. Especially in

Singapore, when trying to make a living by working as

an artist is not easy. You can win a prize today, but it’s

only the first step. It’s an everlasting marathon. You

just have to keep on running and be noticeable among

thousands and millions of other runners. As for the

more established ones, we can name a few because they

are making so much progress. There are Donna Ong

and Jane Lee. Surprisingly, the female artists are the

frontrunners, for a change, and I’m happy for Singapore.

Tell us about an art trend to watch.

If you watch the works at ArtStage, the main shift to

me is that everyone is going back to basics. It goes back

to visual, rather than performance art. It’s more about

painting and sculptures. It’s less conceptual. It’s only

normal because, at the end of the day, you want to see

something with skill and the human touch. But when

you look at winners of the Turner Prize, it’s typically

awarded for works that are very unfamiliar to the layman

and even the expert. At the end of the day, however,

what critics like are very different from what collectors

like.

The return to skill is also reflective of the general

mood.

The way I see is that when you buy art, it is a bit

more serious than buying home décor; you would like

to get to know the person who created it. If you were

told that the piece is produced in multiples, it would

put you off. You would want to see that the artwork

reflects the individuality of its creator. And that you

Trending NoW

Daniel Komala, chairman of Larasati Auctioneers and One East Asia, shares his

thoughts on trends to notice and tips on investing in art

words roSSara jaMil Photos alBert tan

can connect with it in individual ways. The big word is

that the artwork speaks to you. You’d want to see skill,

exclusivity, the human touch and the soul of the artist.

as for south east asia, which countries are going

strong or coming up?

Looking at the demographics of the Southeast Asian

countries, Indonesia, by its sheer volume, is right at

the top. It’s followed by the Philippines. Singapore and

Malaysia are doing well. Then there’s Vietnam, and

the most recent, Myanmar. Myanmar art is shaping

the market. When it comes to buying and selling art,

though, Indonesia still leads because of the diversity of

the art.

What are your top tips for those looking to invest

in art?

Look at quality. Find out about quality by looking at

more things. It’s only through looking and talking to

people that you could define quality. There’s also rarity.

Size also matters. It’s always difficult to deal with big

canvases. You cannot just blow things up and translate

everything by size. Look also at the condition of the

artworks too because artworks travel a lot. Last but not

least, it’s the track record of the artist.

How do you determine the track record of the

artist?

The more established the artist is, the more important

the shows and events he would be participating in. Who

collects his work also matters. Also, the art world is

cruel. I always say this to artists, young or established:

the storm will come so enjoy it while you can. What

differentiates the good artists from so-so ones is the

ability to reinvent themselves and get back on their feet.

GALLERY & STUDIO 94

spotlight

In an age of artistic production while mechanical

processes are threatening traditional artisanal

techniques in favour of intellectual and immaterial

labour, Ju Ming’s art is a fine balance between both

camps. Famed for his abstract, monumental public

sculptures, Ju Ming has demonstrated his virtuosity on

the most unforgiving of materials – be it wood, bronze

or marble. Gallery & Studio learns more about the artist

and how his personal journey stems from craftsmanship.

You were trained as a woodcarver through an

apprenticeship. How did this experience impact

you as an artist?

Traditional wood-carving training had honed my carving

skills. My master then, Li Jinchuan, also encouraged

us to study painting. That enabled me to have a more

accurate grasp of shapes, forms and lines. Frankly

speaking, traditional wood carving apprenticeship does

not pave the way for one to be an artist. In my case,

my ability to carve presented me the opportunity and

The Artist in the Craftsman

Acclaimed Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming shows, for the first time in Southeast

Asia, his famed ‘Taichi’ series of bronze sculptures within the lush greenscape of

the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Gallery & Studio finds out more

words el izaBeth Gan Photos iPreciation Gallery and ju MinG

privilege of seeking Yuyu Yang to be my master and

teacher. That opened the door to the art world.

The apprenticeship had honed my ability to execute

exquisite skills, but some of the traditional techniques

were a burden, and I had to deliberately let go of some

of what I’ve learnt. Regardless of any training, I always

have to reconsider what I should keep as critical skills

and experience, and cut away what was unnecessary to

my pursuit of art.

You have had a successful crafts business prior to

your admirable art career. Would you be able to

share your insights on what is craft and art to you?

Before becoming an artist, I clearly understood that

what I did was not art. It was purely craft work made

for a living, although what I really wanted was to be an

artist. Deep down inside, I knew that having excellent

skills in crafting will open up many possibilities for

new works and innovative products, all of which will

create a good market, provide a comfortable life. But

GALLERY & STUDIO 96

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Split Taichi 1983

this was not my heart’s pursuit. I wanted to be able to

learn art. At that time, all I knew of art was derived from

magazines articles and newspaper reports. Thankfully, I

found Yuyu Yang, who became my teacher and master. I

was ready to give up the lucrative business of crafting,

to devote myself to art.

Under Master Yang’s tutelage, I learnt to appreciate

the essence and distill the best of traditional processes.

Keen to understand and incorporate the traditional

Chinese spirit in my art, the subject of Taichi took root

as I kept working and working to find my own style and

character.

To you, what is Taichi?

I took up taiji practice because Master Yuyu Yang felt

that I needed a stronger physique, and also hoped I

would appreciate the spirit of taijiquan. I am a person

who’d always pursue something thoroughly before

stopping. Hence, I committed myself to learning the full

practice of taiji. I began on working on the Taichi Series

once I felt I had grasped the essence of taiji. By then,

the actual taijiquan practice was no longer important

to me; what became more significant were the Taichi

Series works that I created.

You’ve worked with a range of media, including

bronze, styrofoam, ceramics and stainless steel.

What is your favourite material to work with and

why?

My choice of medium depends on its suitability in

presenting the works intended as well as how much

I take to it. I am partial to mediums which allows me

to work continuously without the burden of having to

consider the end point of the works. I am very partial

to working with sponge materials as it allows me to

cut freely and sculpt non-stop in a way that I enjoy.

Different materials evince different outcomes so it’s up

to us to work with what we like.

You have your own museum just outside of Taipei.

Tell us about some of your favourite works available

for public viewing.

GALLERY & STUDIO 99

Taichi Series 1999

The Juming Museum is what I have constructed over

12 years of passion and effort. All the museum works

found there may be considered my favourites, works

that I hope the public will enjoy. Different works are

presented within different park spaces, based on the

environment and design of the natural setting that best

suits the art pieces.

Why have you decided that this public installation

at the singapore Botanic gardens would be your

last for your famous Taichi series?

Well, I always hope to have the opportunity to share

my works around the world. It is difficult to predict the

future; but of course, I hope that Taichi series and my

current ongoing creation of the Living World Series can

be enjoyed and loved by everyone.

What are your plans?

My plan has always been to create, never stop creating,

and be a first-class artist.

Complete the sentence: if i weren’t an artist…

If I am not an artist, I think I would be a scientist. I

always had a keen interest in the science and the

study of all kinds of things and matter in this world.

I love exploring the detailed characteristics of things,

forming my own observations and insights. Till today, I

continue to read and watch programmes discussing the

exploration of science, environment and ecology.

If scientists use science to convey their understanding

of the world, I use art to express mine. While I have

not fulfilled this wish of being a scientist, in my Living

World Series, there is a group of works called Scientists,

perhaps assuaging this regret.

Ju Ming’s exhibition of 15 pieces from his famed

Taichi series of bronze sculptures will be on public

display at the Singapore Botanic Gardens from now

till April 16.

GALLERY & STUDIO 100

Taichi Series 1994

Taichi Series-Single Whip

A Fluid Approach

We chat with Ocean Wang about her first solo exhibition ‘The Melting Story’

presented at Y2ARTS Gallery

words roSSara jaMil Photos y2artS Gallery and alBert tan

Held at Y2ARTS Gallery, Ocean Wang’s first solo

exhibition of her series ‘The Melting Story’ is

simply stunning. The paintings showcase hy-

per-realistic detailing, freezing moments of street scenes

and the abstraction of fluid lines. Each work, in the dis-

tortion of familiar places and scenes in Singapore, as if

reflected off the liquid metal that Wang brings to life on

canvas, takes on a fantastical slant.

Wang used Chinese brushes, typically with ink, to create

the oil paintings. And each piece saw her go through

several brushes. Lamb hair brushes, in particular, allowed

her to achieve the fine detailed work and the texture that

she wanted. She also attributes this to her background in

ceramic art, where she honed her skills with these brushes,

eventually being able to use them for her oil paintings.

After completing her studies in Beijing, the China-born

artist had moved to Singapore to take on the job of mu-

seum exhibition designer. Four years later, she moved to

the United Kingdom for her Masters Degree of Art in

Museum and Exhibition Design. Living in Bristol after

that, she became “excited about contemporary art” when

the scene was abuzz with artists like Banksy. But coming

back to Asia was something she felt she had to do, so she

settled down in Singapore again.

The soft-spoken Wang shared that she captured street scenes

on her smartphone, did sketches and watercolour paintings in

preparation for the oil paintings. We find out more.

Wondering in the sunshine place


spotlight

There’s a fantasy feel in the series that i really like.

How did you arrive at this concept?

I can draw realistically, but I was also looking at abstract

forms, which I wanted to draw in hyper realistic detail.

So, it’s like a contrast between hyperrealism and abstract

art. I also wanted the illustration to reflect what I feel

around me. I live in Singapore, so I like to wander about.

It’s like a documentary of my life.

as a museum exhibition designer, you would have

had a different perspective on art. How has that

perspective changed now that you’re an artist?

I love that things can be preserved, that an artefact can

last for centuries. I like the old fashioned aspect of it.

Because of that feeling of wandering around museums,

I would like to create something that can last for a

long time – through fine craftsmanship. Even though

contemporary art moved away from craftsmanship for a

period of time, for me it has always been an instinct.

Since I was a child, I’ve always liked to draw and create

The Chinese art scene has changed so much. Do you

feel like you want to experience it too?

(Laughs) Yes, I miss it. Before I graduated from

university there, I was involved in the art directing of an

independent movie and a documentary. Our movie was

selected for the Munich Film Festival. I was surrounded

by contemporary artists and I worked at a pottery studio

just outside the Summer Palace in the late 1990s. At that

time, I didn’t plan to stay in China for very long. I wanted

to see the world. Travelling and life experiences are very

important in my journey. Along the way, I try to do the

things I like and that would finance me to go around

Europe. It’s during that time that Chinese contemporary

art had been going to the world.

You started on the series early last year. How was

it like?

In the beginning, I worked on one piece at a time

because there was a lot of experimenting. My challenge

was to create a large piece to start with and then do

with my hands. Museum exhibition design gave me a lot

of opportunities to go around the world; to do research, to

stay there and to design the exhibition and the artefacts

there. I was quite lucky to have worked with the designer

for the Chinese gallery for the Victoria and Albert

museum. I’m very happy to have that period of time to

have the influence in working with the museum and the

studio and the curators. That led me to appreciate the

fineness of a piece of artwork.

How difficult is it to find inspiration as an artist in

singapore?

Not at all, actually. If you were to ask me this question

20 years ago, I would say yes. That was the reason I left

Singapore for the UK. As an artist from Asia, my roots

have to be in Asia. When I see my Chinese friends

and artists, and what they do, I was very, very inspired.

Somehow when I look at the contemporary artists in

China, there’s a very strong connection. I think it’s in our

culture, blood, training and background. Our roots are

very important as artists.

smaller pieces. With the big piece, I worked on one piece

each time. I used oil, so one piece each time was a slow

process. I also like the Old Masters skill, which is putting

layers upon layers. It takes a long time to dry. With the

smaller pieces, I worked on a few pieces at the same time.

What’s challenging about creating the series?

The reflection, distortion and position have to be right.

Otherwise, your eyes will tell you that it doesn’t feel right.

With this series, too, there’s no visual reference. There’s

no photograph you can take that’s like liquid metal. But

that’s also the exciting part of it. You can imagine it, so

there’s a lot of daydreaming involved with the concepts

and sketches. If you just draw realistically, as it is without

imagination, there’s no difference between a photograph

and a drawing. With this, I can elaborate on the realistic

skills, but at the same time, it’s fantasy. I also scrapped

a lot because, with art, it’s very hard to say. Sometimes,

after you draw it, you don’t like it anymore. It’s very hard

to predict.

Flo

atin

g



When you work, for example, on the ‘Floating By’

piece, what did you look for?

I looked for things that feel natural. And I love

shophouses. I’ve travelled to so many places, but only

Singapore has this type of shophouses. There are some

in Penang, Malaysia, but they are not the same. Here,

you can see Chinese characters in Little India, and

you can see Indian words and shophouses in Kampong

Glam. It’s very mixed and in perfect harmony. I also

drew very randomly, without any expectations. I walked

around Kampong Glam at 6.45 am and I observed

people cleaning up the streets. I saw a chicken

wandering about. Someone let the chicken out early in

the morning. You won’t see that at other times.

As an artist, what do you find most difficult about

your work?

It’s that I’m bombarded with all the happenings of

what’s art and what’s not, what’s avant garde and what’s

really good art. I find that art has become very trashy.

Something that takes a lot of time and patience to do is

becoming less valued. I miss that feeling when I was in

school, and we’re trained to look at the artwork as art

by itself, rather than thinking about what’s popular. I

found that I want to challenge myself, to sit in front of

the canvas even with noise around.

Where do you work?

I use one of my bedrooms. I have three children, and

they are very young. I use the top level and they are at

the bottom level.

With three children, how do you manage?

Accept the mess! Mainly, time is the pressure. But

I think if you have this passion inside you, you can

conquer anything. For some years, I’ve been working

at 5.30 am before the children wakes up. I take care of

them until they go to school and then I start working

again. Because I eliminate travel time and coffee time

with my friends, I can work for five to six hours. I have

very little social life, which I miss a lot. At the same

time, I like being in my own zone to draw. I need that

solitude. That’s the time and space I feel the most free.


Solemn Pose


Nestled on the outskirts of our city centre,

Hotel Clover The Arts is a hidden gem. The

44-room art-themed boutique hotel is housed

in a conservation shophouse, with a contrasting blue and

orange exterior as an immediately distinctive marker.

The property’s interior though, is quirky, with modern

art matched to thematic designs—no two rooms are the

same here.

Focused on the arts, the hotel gives budding artists

a platform to showcase their work and each room

has been independently painted. One way the hotel

achieved this was through an art competition that was

open to students where they had to design a room. The

overwhelming response made shortlisting the winning

designs difficult. Some of the entries can be seen here

in these pictures. One team emerged as clear winners

of the ultimate room design competition. The three

students, from Raffles Design Institute, created a

wall mural of a vintage travel journal showing various

attractions in Singapore. Named “Diary of Singapore”,

the piece saw them use eyeliner to painstakingly write

the words in the journal image.

Independent professional artists were also

commissioned to create artworks for the hotel. In

particular, street artist Ceno2’s works stood out. Majority

of the spaces provided around the hotel were allocated

for him to work on the themes of nature and animals.

Using only aerosol art, or more specifically, graffiti fine

art, he managed to create beautiful painted masterpieces

in his personal style. The external facade of the hotel is

a painting of waterfall seemingly cascading through the

back of the hotel. It is striking and best appreciated in

the early morning or late evening, when the sun’s rays

land upon it. In the lobby, his works centred on iconic

City Escapade

A boutique hotel finds its niche with Art

words nur afifah Photos hotel cloVer the artS


inspired

local attractions, like the Singapore Flyer and Marina

Bay Sand’s towers. He also designed a Mount Fuji

room, which depicted the ‘nature’ theme at its best.

Other professional commissioned artists that took

part in designing the room were ten members from Life

Art Society, a non-profit organisation created to ensure

greater awareness of art and developing art talent locally.

It was the first time that they were asked to create works

using a different and bigger canvas. Participating in

this cause allowed for more exposure of the artists in

Singapore; something that Life Art Society has always

been doing.

“As an incubator showcasing the artwork of both

professional and student artists, we hope to make

these art pieces accessible to the general public while

providing guests with a glimpse into the private worlds

of these artists” says Louis Than, manager of the hotel.

Each art piece has a story to tell, and by the end of a

stay in Hotel Clover the Arts, visitors will leave with a

story or two.

Bedding Down In An Artpiece

The rooms in Hotel Clover The Arts may have

characteristic of similar boutique hotels in old

shophouses—well-appointed with pleasant

touches, but a tad on the small side—but they’re

immensely charming, exuding a unique character

that’s shaped by the hand-painted murals on the wall.

In the Arts King Room this writer had the chance to

bed down in a large queen-sized bed and snooze with

Ceno2’s Mount Fuji-inspired mural for a view. There’s

no escaping balmy Singapore here, but the painted

view, the same you’d get from a mountain-facing onsen

in Tokyo, lulls the imagination into thinking that, just

maybe, one is actually in cooler climes. The hotel has a

fine eye for details, with oriental bed runners and even

artificial cherry blossoms by the side of the bed. Playing

tourist for a day, the colourful walls on the corridors were

a fresh change from the cookie-cutter ones you’d find

in other hotels; and with bright colours and different

scenes that stretched across it, one could be forgiven for

getting trippy and living in a dreamscape after a drink

too many at the rooftop garden, hidden away amidst the

city’s skyscrapers. Hotelcloverthearts.com/


inspired inspired

Known for intriguing works that combine performance, photography, as well as protest, Chinese artist Liu Bolin has created

an art form that is unique to himself. Employing camouflage methods that would put field-craft experts to shame, Liu paints himself to ‘disappear’ into elaborate backgrounds, using concealment to address societal identity. With his own clothed body as a canvas, he then creates compelling photographs that make a statement about the place of individuals in society.

Born in China’s Shandong province in 1973, Liu earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Shandong College of Arts and his Master of Fine Arts from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Commonly known as ‘The Invisible Man’, Liu’s most popular works are from his ‘Hiding in the City’ series, a collection of photographs that came about as a way of recording his art performances in 2005. Currently represented by Klein Sun Gallery in New York, his work has been exhibited in museum shows around the world. Key narratives in his work always pay special attention to the social problems that accompany China’s rapid economic development, making social politics the crux of his pictorials.

Liu’s latest project ‘A Colourful World?’ consists of new sculptures, photographs, and lightboxes that are a reference to the plethora of multi-coloured advertisements and mass-consumer goods that shade oppression and injustice. Through lightboxes that suggest disappearance, intricately painted sculptures, and a continuation of his ‘Hiding in the City’ series, the exhibition reveals Liu’s immense artistic versatility while expressing his perspective

Now You See Me

Dubbed ‘The Invisible Man’, Chinese artist Liu Bolin wows the art world with

his latest exhibition, ‘A Colourful World?’

words Mel iSSa chenG Photos klein Sun Gallery and l iu Bolin

on cultural, societal and political issues.As opulence increases in our modern world, the

appetite of the masses for luxury consumer goods grows substantially. With the media feeding an array of images that penetrate into the subconscious, ideas of being a “perfect” human being are skewed to what is being portrayed, which might not be the actual representation. The two lightboxes included in the show, titled “Missing”, are portraits that fade in-and-out of view. These portraits fade into backgrounds consisting of one hundred dollar bills and junk food, suggesting individuals being forgotten in the pursuit of financial gain and procurement of mass consumer goods.

Stainless steel sculptures, entitled ‘In Magazine’, demonstrate Liu’s innate understanding of depth perception and masterful painting techniques. In this work, a casted face is painted to be camouflaged into the background of more than a dozen hand-painted magazines covers. These express Liu Bolin’s thoughts on the loss of identity in the flood of commercial images, which make the individual conform to societal conventions as depicted by mass media, losing one’s self. Fist sculptures titled ‘In Junk Food’, are brightly-painted in the packaging designs of popular snack foods, illuminating Liu’s comprehension of oppression. Commercialised goods, which Liu represents by using junk food, misleads consumers into consuming food products that look harmless but are in actual fact damaging to the human body. The happy, colourfully packaged snacks hide the potentially harmful contents, and are encouraged for the sake of financial gain. The sculptures express the idea that colourful advertising


SPOTLIGHTSPOTLIGHT

Art

is a vale for timeless modes of oppression that have plagued humanity for generations.

Expanding on the message from ‘In Junk Food’, life-sized ‘Security Check’ sculptures are cast from Liu’s own body, with his arms raised as if in a full-body scanner, and painted completely in snack food packaging designs. They reference a specific example of an unjust exchange that occurs daily, riding on the message of oppression from the fist sculptures. The use of full-body scanners in airports across the nation requires one to assume a position that suggests surrendering; to Liu, it symbolises the surrender of the right to personal privacy. Done under the illusion of increasing safety, the recent air disasters prove that the checks fail its intended purpose, but done as an added form of domination over the rights of an individual. Alluding to the message of the fists, the colourful packaging painted on the sculpture depicts the false claim that a security check is in fact a helpful procedure, and also ties in the idea of

surrendering to societal conventions.As a continuation of his renowned series, ‘Hiding

in the City’, Liu has created the largest work yet with ‘Cancer Village’, where he camouflages twenty-three individuals into a farm with a looming chemical factory in the horizon. These participants have been affected by a 100 per cent increase in the rate of cancer-related deaths afflicting their rural Chinese village. The photograph is a silent protest of their plight and highlights their current position within Chinese society; one of complete invisibility and non-existence.

‘A Colourful World?’ is an inspiring collection that further adds to Liu Bolin’s silent protest to the conventions of the modern world that is clouded by greed and a false sense of security.

To see more of Liu Bolin’s work, please visit

Kleinsungallery.com

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” - Aristotle


SPOTLIGHT

Swiss Magazine Rack

Mi Casa, is a new installation by Carlos Rolón

that incorporates themes of domesticity,

multiculturalism, and craft-making. Rolón,

who also goes by the moniker Dzine, is known for his

paintings and sculptures inspired by Kustom Kulture,

the sub-culture that celebrates hot rods, rockabilly

music, pinstripes, metal flakes and Brylcreem.

Held at Pearl Lam Galleries in Singapore from

January 20 to March 15, Mi Casa is Rolón’s first solo

exhibition in Singapore. Much of the work deals with

the artist’s expression of what it was like growing up

in Chicago as a child of Puerto Rican immigrants.

The work depicts the artist’s perspective of how first

generation immigrants attempted to adapt to new

American lifestyles while retaining old mindsets and

idiosyncrasies. The way they decorated their homes,

their ideals of luxury, the lifestyles they aspired to, and

the sense of identity and belonging they tried to define.

Given such an unusual landscape and resource upon

which the artist draws inspiration from, Rolón’s work is

Custom-Made

Carlos Rolón is best known for paintings and sculptures strongly inspired by the

art, craft and culture of custom-built lowriders and hot-rods. For his exhibition

in Singapore, the artist continues to tap into this resource even as he explores

the fundamental themes that defined his early life – growing up in inner city

Chicago, his Puerto Rican heritage, the strong sense of family, and the vivid,

surreal images of nostalgia it invokes

words t iM Mcintyre Photos alBert tan, Pearl laM GallerieS , and Sutton Pr

a hybrid of elements spanning popular and sub-culture,

faux luxury, and nostalgia. We were fortunate enough

to have had an hour to chat with Rolón prior to the

opening of his exhibition and these are excerpts from

the interview:

kustom kulture

Custom cars are generally not considered works of

art although I was doing all these paintings based on

patterns and colour schemes from these cars. When

people saw these paintings, they would notice the

intricate work. Then I’d tell them it was based on a

detail from a car that I’d documented. Sometimes,

you can take a piece out of its original context and put

it in the middle of an institution, and immediately it

becomes a work of art.

I love the idea of working with a culture of craft

makers, and bringing that culture into a museum.

Having people who would never think about going to a

museum actually visit for the first time. That creates a

GALLERY & STUDIO 117GALLERY & STUDIO 116

sense of inclusion in the work. I remember having a solo

exhibition at a museum in Dallas. I had handed over

half the museum to these guys who built custom cars.

These are guys who’d never stepped into a museum.

During the show, I noticed a young Latino man talking

to an art collector. The collector was in his 60s and sat

on the board of the museum. And they were actually

having a discussion about the work. Those are the kind

of moments that last forever for me.

The power of context

When you take something out of its original context, it

can make you rethink the item and its functionality. For

example, we’ve seen dozens of plant holders yet we’ve

never really looked at it. But viewed on its own, inside

the space on an institution, you observe that it has been

meticulously put together by hand. Yet when we first see

them, we kind of just walk by.

schooling

My education in art and art history was mostly self-

thought. I had done so much research and spent hours

upon hours at the museum that by the time I got to

university, I found myself quite bored. They were

basically trying to teach me what I already knew. The

only thing missing was that they never talked about

artists that I could relate to.

such as?

My tastes are diverse but I love Kerry James Marshall

and his work on African-American culture. I love the

work of Olafur Eliasson and how he uses the object

to discuss the environment. I love the work of David

Hammons, who’d make paintings out of the dye of Kool-

Aid, because he drank that as a kid all the time. I like

artists such as Mike Kelley – artists that have this long

lineage and are very serious about their studio practice

and longevity. They create work that will still speak to

people 30, 40 years from now.

How did Mi Casa come about?

I wanted to do something that dealt with the idea of

home and what it means to people. Singapore being

multicultural was important to me – because my work is

a hybrid of cultures.

Family

My father wanted to be a salsa musician and my mother

a beautician. He ended up working in a factory and she

in a supermarket.

Home

We lived in a modest bungalow and my parents

transformed it in a way that added a certain elegance.

They wanted to create a sense of opulence, even though

things didn’t really fit. We had floral wallpaper in one

room, Venetian wallpaper in another, and every room

had different wallpaper. My mother also had these large

vases that she thought were fine regal China. They were

probably very cheap but for her, the vases represented

luxury. We had this beautiful baroque chandelier in the

living room. It was probably just two feet by two feet

by two feet. But the house was so small, and as a child,

it looked really huge. I remember thinking: “Wow, we

have this really fancy chandelier.” All these are part of

a memory that I wish I can have again, to be in that

moment again.

Mirrors

A lot of mirrors are used in Puerto Rican homes to make

the interiors look bigger. Once in the US, Puerto Rican

immigrants continued using them for decoration, and

opulence. Broken mirrors give a sense of melancholy,

and the feeling that something isn’t new. A sense of

deterioration that is really beautiful.

growing up

I was the only artist in a gang-infested neighbourhood.

Yet there is this wonderful reference point – friends

with bootleg LV jackets and shoes. I take inspiration

from that stuff.

Closed doors

Being a minority and growing up in inner city Chicago,

I would never have felt welcome in an art gallery. My

family never took me to museums. Probably because

nobody ever talked to them about contemporary or

historical art. These are things they just couldn’t relate

to. Nobody was really speaking their language. So I had

to find out on my own.

luxury

I’ve no attachment to luxury, to be honest. I prefer

fantasy to reality. Once you have the reality, the fantasy

is gone. It’s nice to be able to hold on to fantasy, to have

something you’re constantly aspiring to.

Work

I decided several years ago to reduce my output and

increase the quality of my work. So I’m very selective

about the shows I do, and the amount of work I produce.

Right now the art world is very market-driven. The more

you put in, the more money you might make. But in

the long term, the work loses its substance. I want to

make sure what I’m producing has historical rather than

immediate value.


spotlight


spotlight

Black Ice

A Buddhist Perspective

Artist Chumpol Taksapornchai explains how art and

Buddhism helped set him right

words & Photos nicole louiS

Art in Thailand often brings to mind iconic

Buddhist-styled paintings that function as a

deep-rooted form of cultural expression. A dif-

ferent, more contemporary or abstract art practice is of-

ten deemed to appeal to the social elite and international

audience instead of the average Thai person. For a coun-

try that is majority Buddhist and reliant on agriculture for

a living, that’s hardly surprising. And the majority of Thai

artists often opt for a safer, more commercial approach

to their craft: painting traditional Buddhist art, drawing

portraits for tourists or teaching. Standing out amongst

that crowd, is Chumpol Taksapornchai, an artist who is

living his life’s passion on his own terms.

Born in 1977 in Bangkok, Taksapornchai reflects

on a childhood spent living on the “wrong side of the

river.” He describes street life in an industrial ghetto as

“pretty rough with drugs rampant.” His working class

neighbourhood, majority of whom are factory workers,

exposed him to a darker side of society early on. These

experiences fuelled a stubborn determination to paint a

better future for himself.

EARLY LIFE

For as long as he could remember, Taksapornchai felt

drawn to the arts. Much of his spare time was spent

drawing; where he copied movie poster or paintings; or

dreamed up cartoon characters. Western art may have

been new to him then, but he was fascinated with how

the artists used various techniques to achieve certain

effects. By age twelve, he took himself to art classes,

despite the arduous journey to get there.

Taksapornchai’s formal education began at Rajabhat

Thornburi University, where he graduated with a

Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communications of Art and

Design, contrary to his father’s wish for a reliable future

in business. He was fortunate to land a job at the Mercury

Art Gallery, the largest and most innovative gallery in

Bangkok. Besides exhibiting works from established

artists, the space also gave emerging artists a platform to

be seen. An annual exhibition saw young Taksapornchai

exhibiting alongside Thailand’s biggest names, like the

first Southeast Asian prize winner, Santi Thantsuk. Later,

Chumpol would move to Chiang Mai and spend another

three years at the Thaivijitsilpa Art College. There,

he would paint portraits and sell prints at the vibrant

markets around Chiang Mai to support himself.

ART AND RELIGION

Taksapornchai’s mother, a business woman and devoted

Buddhist, inspired his second love — Buddhism.

Curious to understand its fundamentals, Taksapornchai

took on a stint as a Buddhist monk at the age of 21, which

he claims changed his life, providing a disciplined and

solid foundation for the artist’s life and art to flourish.

On canvas, he explores Buddhist themes like the cycle

of growth and decay. He muses, “Life is never static, its

nature is change and flux. Sometimes from one moment

to the next, nothing stays the same.” Evidently, art and

religion are deeply entwined passions for the artist.

THE TURNING POINT

A filial son, Taksapornchai returned to Bangkok to help


spotlight

his family when they encountered financial difficulties.

“There was no money,” he explains, “everything happened

at once. I had to take care of my family so I worked in

design, painted portraits commercially and sold batik at

the markets. It was a tough time.” Yet in a country where

art is still an inconceivable career choice, Taksapornchai’s

talent enabled him to tap on it to fulfil his obligations to

his family, as tradition demands.

The painter’s unique style really developed when he

moved back to Chiang Mai. “I wanted to simplify, to

refine my art down to elements that are meaningful,”

he describes. Consequently, what he paints on canvas

appears almost child-like. “Some people call my art

whimsical but my work is as much about an inner

reality as it is about the people around me,” he shares.

Taksapornchai’s paintings reflect his observations on life

and relationships. His perception of what lies beneath

is presented in bold yet simplistic forms that express

universal truths and the intricacies of daily life. Symbols

of elaborate trees allude to strong nurturing foundations;

always growing and and blossoming. Subtle shades of

raindrops suggest that things come and go beyond our

control. Couples side by side, and the shadows that

follow, hint at the inner reality of love and marriage.

“Relationships are beautiful but hard,” he adds almost

wistfully.

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP

Taksapornchai is softly spoken, yet his calm demeanour

belies an active social life in the community. Like his

art, there is much going on beneath the surface. Back

in Chiang Mai where he calls home, you can find him

at his gallery and residence, Matoom Art Space. In the

heart of the Old City, the gallery is an eclectic hub

for artists, musicians, and travellers alike. There, his

paintings, a combination of oils, watercolour, pastels and

mixed media hang on the walls, captivating a loyal and

international audience.

With the effects of the global economic downturn

and the coup in Thailand, “it’s been a difficult year”,

says Taksapornchai. It has meant some overseas orders

have been cancelled, along with an upcoming exhibition

in London. However as we speak, the artist is busy

wrapping paintings for a combined show in Switzerland.

He also auctions off his work for charity; the proceeds

from his last sale will go to victims affected by the recent

earthquake in Chiang Rai, in which the famous White

Temple was damaged. He also frequents Pai, a small but

‘hip’ town nestled in the mountains in Northern Thailand,

where he works and raises money for the blind.

Counting in his recent local exhibit ‘Smile On Pain’

and the 27 other international exhibitions he’s shown

in countries like Japan, Australia and Switzerland,

Taksapornchai has achieved the unimaginable: earning

a living in Thailand painting abstract art without

compromising individual style. As this writer takes her

leave, he smiles serenely before sharing, “the exhibition

in London is going ahead.” Ominous then, that perhaps

life wasn’t meant to be static, for it can well change

within a moment.

“Life is never static, its nature is change and flux. Sometimes from one

moment to the next, nothing stays the same.”


spotlight

Creative Drive

BMW partners Art Basel to take artists on a road of discovery with the

BMW Art Journey

words jonathan tan Photos BMw

Judging by these beautifully painted classic cars:

the technicoloured BMW M3 GT2 car painted by

American-artist Jeff Koons; Andy Warhol’s dashing

paintjob on a classic 1979 M1 Group 4 Race Version;

and the comic-strip inspired colours on New York-born

Roy Lichtenstein’s 1977 320i Group 5 Race Version car,

BMW’s association with the arts over the last 40 years

need little further introduction.

And come later this year, through partnership with

Art Basel, the Bavarian carmaker will be giving emerging

artists a chance to embark on a personal journey of

creative discovery. Dubbed the BMW Art Journey, the

award will enable chosen artists to travel with a ‘mobile

studio’ of sorts, with the resources to embark on a trip of

their choosing; to explore, discover and develop a brand

new art project.

Naturally, such an experience will yield a wealth of

experience and colour. In return, the artist’s journeys will

be documented and shared with the public through print,

digital and social platforms. And where possible, BMW

will further support them in presenting these projects in

physical exhibitions and through engagements with other

artists and art organisations internationally.

But not just any hotshot gets to qualify for this award.

Only artists exhibiting their work at the emerging-artists

sectors in the upcoming Art Basel Hong Kong and Miami

Beach shows will be eligible for this possibly life-changing

experience. Even then, they’ll still have to go through

a preliminary round of judging by an internationally

respected jury at each respective show. Three chosen

ones from each show will then be shortlisted and invited

to submit proposals for said journey in a subsequent

round of review.

For a new artist cutting his or her teeth in an increasingly

competitive art market, the BMW Art Journey counts as

a huge honour and opportunity to jumpstart one’s career.

You’d never know; the next car to join the coveted family

of BMW art cars could be an automotive masterpiece by

a new contemporary heavyweight.

To follow the journey, visit bmw-art-journey.com


in detail

Waiting for us on the third floor of a residen-

tial complex in the center of old Yangon,

Nyein Chan Su, called NCS, warmly wel-

comes us at Studio Square, a gallery that he and four

other independent artists established in 2003. Born in

1973 in Yangon, Nyein Chan Su studied at the State

School of Fine Arts from 1994. An active member of

political protests, NCS is a strong character represent-

ing a generation of artists who, nationalist and involved,

do not hesitate to craft their claims and hopes through

their creations. Equally known as an abstract painter, a

performance and video installation artist, NCS is widely

recognised as one of Myanmar’s leading mid-career art-

ists. An ASEAN art award laureate in 2004, the artist is

included in many international exhibitions and is part

of numerous public and private collections such as the

Singapore Art Museum and the Fukuoka Art Museum.

Facing his studio, Studio Square Gallery features a

few works signed NCS through which the artist starts

guiding us…

nCs, you were born in 1973, 26 years after the

independence of Myanmar. in which context were

you evolving when you decided to become an artist?

Today, the 8th of August 2014, is the 26th anniversary

of the students’ demonstrations that happened in the

streets of Yangon in 1988. Students and monks were

raising their voices for a change in favour of democracy

and against socialism. Soldiers were shooting at them

and oppression never ceased to increase until 2007.

From this day on, I knew that I wanted to make things

change thanks to my art: it was a turning point in my

life. I began to draw against the rules, write poems, and

tag the walls of the schools like a street artist. My first

performance was in 1997. Then, I organised exhibitions

by invitation only so that I could control the people who

wanted to be present and I accepted only my friends. I

wanted to divert the censorship, to bypass it.

This is why there are a lot of hidden clues, symbols

in your work. Can you help us to decipher them?

Yes. For instance, one of my installations shows blue

balloons standing on mirrors. These balloons stand for

people’s faces but I don’t actually display the faces.

My colours are also meaningful. Red tells the story of

Myanmar, its culture, its religion, but also the revolution

and people’s bravery. The gold colour is a sign for hope.

People of Myanmar worship Buddha statues on which

are applied golden leaves, paint or plates. Gold makes

Art For Change

From his gallery in the heart of old Yangon, Nyein Chan Su talks us through

evading censorship in the previously military-ruled Myanmar and how his

artwork functions as a voice for political change

words louiSe Mile Photos charleS Muller


SPOTLIGHTSPOTLIGHT

statues shine. In my paintings, gold resonates like “goal”,

a goal to achieve freedom.

on the contrary, your sculptures are quite obvious

in terms of meaning. Can you tell us about them?

Yes, my sculptures genuinely show soldiers with tools

expressing different facets of Myanmar. For instance,

the piece with soldiers and an enormous phone in the

center obviously shows the control of our means of

communication and the lack of access to the rest of the

world. The piece with the tractor refers to farmers who

lost their land when mountains were sold to the Chinese

government. Another one showcasing a camera branded

Zenit (typical Russian camera) underlines the links

between Myanmar and Russian history and socialist

governments.

is the message of all the mediums that you are

using similar then?

My paintings convey a peaceful message whereas my

sculptures are cruder. But the idea is the same. I would

like people from the younger generations to know where

they come from, that independence is not here yet even

if it is written on paper. Change is only on the surface,

in other words, there is no change, no improvement, no

feeling of security in our minds, souls and emotions.

Myanmar society continues to be plagued by red tape;

this corresponds to the thin red vein that meanders

through my artworks. Myanmar is seen as a democracy

abroad but in fact, we are still in a military regime.

Talking about the younger generations, studio

square gallery plays an important role in assisting

and promoting younger artists allowing them to

show their works along with established regional

artists. How do you do so?

When I was still studying at the State School of Fine Arts,

it was really difficult to organise an exhibition because

there were very few galleries. Here at Studio Square,

exhibitions are free of charge, we design invitation

cards, catalogues. We organise three to four shows per

year. When a prisoner is liberated and wants to express

himself through art, we encourage, accompany him and

show his work.

Do you think that, with the progressive opening

of the country, the prices for Myanmar artists

will increase and the market will become more

international?

In Myanmar, there is no reliable international banking

system. As you see in the gallery we have the Visa sign as

well as a credit card terminal, but when someone pays

me with a credit card, I never know if I will actually

receive the funds! Burmese people are extremely afraid

of black money and it is very hard to establish prices

following a regular offer and demand regulation. So I

hope that, with the internationalisation of Burmese art,

the market will be smoother. International collectors

are interested in buying authentic Burmese art and they

sometimes travel here to see our shows and buy. I am

confident in the future of the Burmese art scene.


SPOTLIGHTSPOTLIGHT

GALLERY & STUDIO 133GALLERY & STUDIO 132

Fair Game

Gallery & Studio rounds up the highlights from last quarter’s clutch of

art fairs here and abroad


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The Main Course In Miami

Art Basel’s Miami Beach enjoyed its 13th iteration in December seeing great

attendance matched with critical praise

words derryn wonG Photos art BaSel

Art Basel is one of the major events in the art world. And since the original expo started in the eponymous Swiss city of

Basel, it expanded to Miami Beach in 2003 and also to Hong Kong in 2013, the latter to support the burgeoning interesting in the art scene of Asia and the developing markets of the region, includ-ing Southeast Asia.

Miami though, solidified its reputation not only as the major exhibition for the Americas, but also as a stalwart in the international scene: this year saw all galleries present in 2013’s edition return once again, plus many newcomers as well. In total 267 galleries from 31 countries were featured, with attendance of 73,000 over the show’s five-day exhibition period. As is now ‘traditional’, the show’s leading sponsor was UBS.

The show was split up into sectors — to make things manageable for visitors, we expect, given the sheer number of works and galleries involved. All in all for 2014, there were nine sectors in total, both showing off not only different mediums but also film and even magazines. The segments highlight Art Basel’s focus on Modern and contemporary with each providing a unique spin on things.

Highlights include ‘Survey’ which involves art-history projects, and saw 13 exhibitions which involved presentations that drew from a range of multi-cultural and contextual sources. ‘Nova’ focused on works from the past three years only, while ‘Positions’ gave emerging artists the spotlight with solo shows.

‘Film’ was bustling too this year. Curated for

the fourth time by David Gryn of Artprojx, it saw more than 80 works from the show’s participating galleries and more than 1,000 attendees for the four nights of free screenings. Tim Burton’s ‘Big Eyes’ had a special screening at the Colony Theatre as well.

Visitors had the chance for in-depth interaction with the ‘Public’ sector (pun not intended) with more than 26 large scale pieces to explore plus installations by 24 artists, both recognisable and emerging, all displayed in the Collins Park area. In fact it will be the most lasting aspect of the show, physically, since the works will remain on display until March 2015. As it has been for the past three years, Public was presented in collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art.

On the cutting edge of things, the afternoon ‘Salon’ segment saw many discussions and panels. Curators Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist debated with special guest Kevin Systrom, CEO and co-founder of Instagram, about the artistic nature of the online photo app medium. Art Basel also had its Kickstarter-funded projects here, with a panel on the new Crowdfunding Initiative. Other talks also included figures such as Marina Abramovic, Josh Baer and Claire Bishop, and many others.

Outside of the sectors, a major highlight was the co-presenting of Ryan McNamara’s ballet piece with Performa (the New York Visual Art Performance Biennial), “ME M 4 Miami: A Story Ballet About the Internet” which deals with the Internet as a key, contemporary engagement space.


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How has the art Paris

art Fair changed since

your appointment in

2011?

Art Paris was rebrand-ed as Art Paris Art Fair in 2012. We gave the event a new personali-ty—a soul. It looks to-wards the East, focus-ing on discovery in the art world, placing cities

like Beijing, Sarajevo, Bangkok, Moscow, Seoul and Singapore on the world map. The concept can be described as cosmopolitan regionalism; the idea that while a local identity remains rooted, it is

From Singapore, With Love

Art Paris Art Fair director and curator Guillaume Piens gives us the insider scoop

of the Singaporean and Southeast Asian elements present at the fair, which takes

place from March 26 to 29 at the Grand Palais in Paris

words louiSe Mile Photos art PariS art fair

also celebrating 50 years of independence with a Singapore Festival in France. There is also the inaugural ‘The Secret Archipelago’ exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, which coincides with our opening.How will the fair serve as an introduction to the

singaporean and southeast asian art scene?

The invitation of Singapore and Southeast Asia is directed by Iola Lenzi, a curator, researcher and Southeast Asia specialist. The dozen Singapore-based galleries participating also demonstrates the diversity of talents from Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore with names like Lee Wen, Jeremy Sharma and Robert Zhao. A line-up of talks and video screenings will complement this presentation of what is a lesser known art scene to European visitors.

The general sector will also include a number of galleries and artists from Southeast Asia including Thai artist Navin Rawanchaikul from Adler Suhbashok, Burma’s Aung Ko from Primo Marella, Vietnam’s Dinh Q. Le and Bui Cong Khanh from 10 Chancery Lane. From the Philippines, Manuel Ocampo, Nathalie Obadia and Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan will be represented by Hélène Bailly.

What are your thoughts on european sensitivity

towards art from asia?

also part of a global culture, like the emerging art scenes in the East.

We also created thematic sections, like the Promises sector, dedicated to exploration and discovery. There is also the ArtDesign platform that explores the relationship between art and design. This year, we are introducing a solo show section to help discover or re-discover artists.

last year’s fair was dedicated to China. What

influenced this year’s focus on Singapore?

We decided to invite Singapore and Southeast Asia as guests-of-honour for 2015. Singapore is both a springboard, and a gateway to the booming and increasingly influential art scene emerging from Southeast Asia. Moreover, Singapore is

The French are among the leading collectors of contemporary Chinese art (the Levy collection, for example). With the Quai Branly, the Musée Guimet and the Musée Cernuschi, Paris has one of the most outstanding collections of Asian art in the world. The Espace Louis Vuitton was the first to show Indonesian art, long before anyone else. Chinese art has been fashionable for quite a long time but now the attention is shifting to Southeast Asia and Korea.

With a clutch of art fairs and art museums

opening up in Paris, what are your thoughts on the

resurgence of art in Paris?

Paris has never been as active as it is now. The city is attracting new artists, collectors and institutions from all around the world. The Paris of the 21st century is taking shape with new outstanding architecture like the Louis Vuitton Foundation by Frank Gehry, the Pathé-Seydoux Foundation designed by Renzo Piano and the Philharmonie de Paris by Jean Nouvel. In addition to these is the transformation of the Hotel de la Monnaie into a contemporary art space and the Picasso museum’s re-opening. There are also a large number of new private spaces created by collectors who fully embrace our globalised world, and are interested in emerging scenes beyond Europe.


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A Cultural Exchange

The Singapore Art Fair successfully brought art from the ME.NA.SA region

together for the first time

words nur afifah Photos S inGaPore art fair

The inaugural Singapore Art Fair, held from November 27 to 30 last year, saw 59 galleries from 22 countries showcasing the

work of over 230 artists from the Middle East, North Africa, South and Southeast Asia (ME.NA.SA) regions. In Asia, it was the first time an art fair featured contemporary art from these countries.

Across the four-day show, a total of 10,500 visitors walked the halls, including patrons on the fair’s honorary board, made up of collectors, art advisors, private museum owners and directors of museums and institutions from across the world.

With many artists showcasing their work personally, walking through the Singapore Art Fair offered numerous opportunities to interact with them, and get an insight into their inspirations and challenges in creating their artworks.

The three pavilions headlining the fair—the ME.NA Pavilion, Lebanese Pavilion as well as Dato’ Ibrahim Hussein Pavilion—also drew praise

for the quality of the exhibition. For those who missed out, the ME.NA Pavilion was dedicated to presenting the complexity of artistic practices in a region which had gone through tumultuous times in history. The Lebanese Pavilion showed works inspired through personal and historical experiences by emerging and renowned artists from Lebanon exploring the theme of turmoil in the Middle East; reverberations on their multicultural democracy and concomitantly; and the seeming loss of freedom and equilibrium in the country. Lastly, the Dato’ Ibrahim Hussein Pavilion showcased a rare glimpse of the selected works of the late renowned Malaysian artist.

Heartened by enthusiastic response for the recent Singapore Art Fair, the organisers of Singapore Art Fair are exploring how it can aspire to greater heights for future editions. The next fair has been scheduled to be held from 19 to 22 November 2015.


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League Leaders

Art Stage Singapore 2015 continues on in fine form, with Southeast Asia at the forefront,

special exhibitions and more than 200 galleries from 29 countries in participation

words jonathan tan Photos alBert tan and art StaGe S inGaPore

As far as art fairs in Singapore go, none have yet been able to generate the same kind of buzz and energy as Art Stage

Singapore. And with 51,000 visitors in attendance at this year’s fair, Art Stage has once again shown its pedigree with another hit.

True to its commitment of growing and developing a robust artistic eco-system, this year’s exhibitions have been styled like a museum with highlights like the Southeast Asia Platform and the exhibition, ‘Eagles Fly, Sheep Flock—Biographical Imprints: Artistic Practices in Southeast Asia’, curated by Singaporean Khim Ong. Focused on young emerging talents from the region with a selection of works on new and traditional mediums, the exhibition facilitated an intimate engagement with the artists, and served as an entry point for understanding art from the region. “I like the Southeast Asian platform as it serves as an excellent contrast against more commercially viable works, providing a broader understanding and representation of art in Southeast Asia, which is what Art Stage is about,” shared Elizabeth Gan, an art enthusiast.

Elsewhere, this year’s show also featured special exhibitions. Video appears to be coming in strong with the debut of ‘Video Stage’, a survey of video art, tracing the history of a medium that is gaining traction with collectors. Other regions featured in the exhibitions included Russia, Malaysia and Korea. There was also a special exhibition of 54 works by French cubist and surrealist Andre Massson, the first of its scale in Asia. Commenting on the exhibitions, artist Zelin Seah shared: “I’m heartened to see an

increased representation of Asian art, especially from Malaysia, at this year’s edition of Art Stage Singapore.”

Art Stage 2015 also saw many a notable name grace visit the fair. British duo Gilbert and George, Hiroshi Senju, FX Harsono, Manit Sriwanichpoom and Lev Ezovich of AES+F were just some of the artists whom collectors and enthusiasts could be seen interacting with.

On the business end, this year’s show saw many galleries do brisk business with many transactions concluded at the Vernissage. According to Art Stage, the strong sales had continued on throughout the rest of the fair days. As for the top sale, it went to ‘Armorous’ a Damien Hirst piece which featured butterflies stuck onto a surface of wet paint. Said piece was sold by White Cube to a regional collector for a grand US$1.6 million. Commenting on the fair, gallery director of Yavuz Gallery Stella Chang said, “I’ve had many excellent conversations with people at this year’s Art Stage Singapore. It’s been a very pleasant experience on top of the buzz because of the audiences.”

Reflecting on the recently concluded fair, Lorenzo Rudolf, founder and fair director of Art Stage Singapore shared, “it is beautiful to see the cooperation between the Fair, museums, art spaces as well as government agencies, all functioning seamlessly together. January in Singapore has become the focal point of the international art calendar. We are looking forward to building up the fair even more.” Given what we’ve seen so far, next year’s edition couldn’t come sooner.


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Gilbert & George


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www.davison.com.sg

AFICIONADOS WANTEDAFICIONADOS WANTEDAFICIONADOS WANTEDAFICIONADOS WANTED

Davison G&S IHA.indd 8 3/11/14 3:15 PM

T.O.P at Art Stage

It’s a bold move to proclaim yourself to be the next

coolest art space. Many an initiative has adopted

similar monikers, but failed to live up to such billing.

But we say DECK has certainly lived up to that boldness.

A product of the kind people from 2902 Gallery, DECK

is an independent art space created for photography and

the people who love it. Whether you’re a pro, novice, or

even a smartphone photographer, DECK is a space for

anyone—photographer and photographed—to come to-

gether, appreciate and be inspired by the belief that at its

very core, photography is all about you and me—people.

The uber cool space located at Prinsep Street has been

re-purposed from 19 shipping containers, many of them

stacked on top of the other. Think Lego, but on a massive

industrial scale.

Popping DECK’s solo exhibition cherry is 31-year-old

Singaporean artist, Ang Song Nian. Ang is known for his

SNAPSHOTS IN THE CITY

Calling all photography aficionados—we may have just found you a new haven

in the latest art space to debut in town.

words f iona Goh Photos deck and darren Soh

penchant for photographing inanimate objects and let-

ting the non-living speak for themselves in his pictures.

His exhibition, titled A Tree With Too Many Branches

explores landscaping and gardening; how these processes

take plants out of their natural environment, are trans-

formed into everyday objects, and subsequently present-

ed as natural in their new urban landscapes.

The keynote piece of this exhibition combines photog-

raphy with the art of installation in a 3D display made

of up to 800 indoor plants. Ang also debuts ‘The Perfect

Pattern’, a series which consists of 10 photographs of

miniature trees arranged in different shapes.

Various exhibitions run throughout the year. Visit Deck.

sg to find out more.

116 Prinsep Street, Singapore 188665


in detail

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