What's On / Visual Arts / Archive

October 2007

Chu Yan & The Substation :
Relentless

chu yan

‘Relentless’ encapsulates the artist’s observations about human performances in life, which
she attempts to capture in this series of paintings with the use of patterned “landscapes” that suggest mass, paths and volumes of peaked human drives, activities and movement. The use of patterns point to the artist’s sense of schema that governs our everyday lives, and prescribes paths of actions, behavior and attitude.

Chu Yuan is a visual artist who has been involved in organising, researching and writing about art. In the 1990s, she worked at The Substation. From 2000 - 2006, she worked in collaboration with Singapore-born artist Jay Koh. focusing on publlic and community engaged ways of art making. In her art practice, she employs a variety of media such as soft sculpture, installation, performance, photography, poetry and text. After 13 years After 13 years of art practice, she returned to the solitary act of painting, the media that she started with. "Relentless" is her first exhibition of paintings.

September 2007

Objectifs Centre for Photography and Filmmaking and The Substation :
Small Talk

A video installation by Victric Thng & Mauricio Alejo. Curated by Wahyuni Hadi, Small Talk brings together Singapore-based filmmaker Victric Thng and New York-based visual artist Mauricio Alejo in a collaboration where each artist produces new works through responding to the other’s works. This artistic dialogue is extended to the gallery viewer who is invited to “eavesdrop”, participate or simply walk away. After premiering at SeptFest, the exhibition will open at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the end of 2007.

September 2007

Eric Chan :
Another Place, Another Time

It's been six years since Eric's last solo exhibition at The Substation. Since then the sought-after painter has moved on from monochromes and minimalism, to explore still life, landscape and the relation between painting and photography. Eric returns to The Substation this year with a new series of works that combine his fascinations with cinema and portraiture in Western art history.

August 2007

Victoria Dunn :
New

Night Well 2006, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 90 x 130 cm

We constantly reflect upon our daily experiences and in so doing cannot help but interconnect images from disparate parts of our memory. This interconnection is the process of imagination. The artworks in the NOW exhibition are the products of the synthesis of experience and imaging imagination. In this sense the work addresses issues that arise in connection with artistic practice and the embodied subject.

NOW is an exhibition of work produced with the concept that the creation of artwork is a complex process that involves both innate and reflective opportunities.

July/August 2007

Tang Mun Kit :
Hibernated Works Re-Engineered + 33%

In this 15th solo exhibition by Singapore artist Tang Mun Kit, the artist revisits and reworks the works and concepts derived from his 1997 artist residency at The Substation and the subsequent solo show then, entitled "Hibernated Works: Objects, Sculptures, Assets aka Materials vs Materialism". That exhibition conceptualised the use of found objects, the experimental and improvisational attitude and work methods employed, and the research and documentation recording processes as the three basic elements of Tang's artmaking. In the new exhibition, the artist will also endeavour to achieve 133% more in terms of inspiration, effort and creative input to the artworks, and correspondingly, an increase of 33% in the pricing of the artworks.

July 2007

John Clang :
White Book

This exhibition consists of Clang's personal work presented in a very intimate unusual non gallery setting. His work will be shown to the audience in a white book (portfolio), in a setting that resembles one of the numerous meetings he had while showing his portfolio.

June 2007

The Australian High Commission presents:
Streetworks: inside outside Yokohama

A highlight of the International Triennale of Contemporary Art Yokohama 2005, the work of leading Australian video artists, Shaun Gladwell and Craig Walsh, hits the pavements of South East Asia.

While Walsh connects the gallery space to the outside urban environment, Gladwell works in reverse. In different ways both artists have produced work that generates a tension between gallery and the public street. Their emphasis on other opposing values is also highlighted in the exhibition that moves laterally around concepts of performance and documentation, high art and low art, sub-cultural and pop-cultural, staged and real.

Streetworks: Inside Outside Yokohama is organised by Asialink and Canberra Contemporary Art Spaces and is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

May 2007

Julia Roberts:
Glare

Think you know the Australian landscape? A new exhibition of paintings by Singapore based Australian artist, Julia Roberts might make you think again.

'GLARE' which opens at the Substation gallery on Wednesday 9th May is a new take on a very traditional subject. Working on a variety of different sized and shaped boards Roberts experiments with both the format and composition of her works to explore the different moods of the Australian bush. In some pieces Roberts imbues her trees with some very human-like characteristics through passages of figurative painting that are overlain with graffiti like silhouettes. Whilst in other darker works, Roberts suggests the eerie presence and chilling experience of being alone in the Australian bush.

April 2007

A performance of curators by Khairuddin Hori:
Trading Craft

What does the role of curating circumscribe, who wants to be a curator in Asia and what makes it curating? These and other questions pondered upon in a performance featuring curators from Asia. Trading craft is a collaboration and collusion, an experiment of strategies of curatorial production and a moment of play, expanding on expectations of the nature of the roles we perform.

Organised and presented by the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, with support of The Substation.

Khairuddin Hori is a Substation Associate Artist.

April 2007

Wunderspaze presents:
Action Parties

A definition of action: deed and process of engagement.  Wunderspaze was granted the use of The Substation Gallery this coming weekend, as privilege and opportunity, however temporary, to stake a claim and ‘own’ the space. But we have not exercised this privilege. As a conscious gesture to redistribute resources beyond a single entity; to abolish the notion of a gallery slot as the property of the appointed artist; to reject sole ownership; to give out this space; to share with others; we’ve done something different and have given away time in the gallery to others to use the space.  
Come down to observe or take part in any of the four different actions. Full details: wunderspaze.blogspot.com.

March 2007

First solo ceramic exhibition by Pearl Yang:
Peace of Mind

Ceramist Pearl Yang expresses her love of beauty, sense of playfulness and joy of life through the re-creation of Nature's expressions. Her intricately patterned, hand-crafted ceramic sculptures are wheel-thrown, then lovingly molded, pinched and coiled into textured yet graceful artworks. Each sculpture is reminiscent of flowering blooms, curled autumn leaves, eroded shells, weathered shorelines, sea corals and anemone trawled from the reef. When lighted up from within, these opalescent and luminous sculptures reflect the peace and tranquility of an underwater world retreat. Pearl Yang's first solo exhibition, "Peace of Mind", showcases 40 artworks culminating 18 years of artistic insight, thought, skill and experience.

Pearl graduated from the La-Salle-SIA College of Arts in 1996 with a Diploma in Ceramic Design. Since then, she has been prolific in the design and creation of a wide range of tableware, tiles, sculptures and artworks. Her ceramic artworks are collected by private collectors, corporations, hotels, restaurants and lifestyle organizations.

march 2007

Pippa Killen presents:
'Recollections of the Void'

Recollections of the Void reflects an elemental exploration into different aspects of space, time and memory. The influence of the Northern European Romantic Movement and their worship of nature as a mystical primal force, provides a springboard from here and now into beyond, in this instance seen as the transcendental. The space that is carved out of the two-dimensional space by the graphic marks on the canvases, is seen more as a sense of space that exists beyond the immediate foreground, and lies within the realm of the transcendental experience

The painter's palette has been reduced to primary grey, white and pale blue, so as to define Recollections of the Void without confusion, whilst questioning the theory that grey does not exist in nature. Her work seeks to provoke an instinctive, possibly meditative, response. Process is used as a tool of investigation in a way that is considered, yet open to chance, thereby retaining some of the spontaneity of the physical act of painting.

Pippa Killen is a South African born French artist, who has lived and worked in Singapore for the past 6 yrs. Formerly trained as a sculptor and textile designer, she completed her Degree and Masters in Fine Art painting at Lasalle SIA. Some of the work presented is taken from the Masters' programme 2006.

March 2007

A Fundraising Exhibition for The Substation:
Reflections: Paintings by Thomas Yeo

In this fundraising exhibition for The Substation, renowned Singapore painter, former President of the Modern Art Society and Cultural Medallion winner, Thomas Yeo demonstrates his belief in the value and worth of The Substation. We invite you to support The Substation and the artists of Singapore by investing in Thomas' paintings. Proceeds from the exhibition will help The Substation improve its premises and present more projects by Singapore artists. Give your support to The Substation - the creative incubator for Singapore arts and artists since 1990.

50% of each painting's price attracts a double tax exemption.

February 2007

Hong Kong Spotlight:
"Comix Magneto": Collected Hong Kong comics exhibition curated by Hong Kong Arts Centre

It's the comic event of the year! But seriously, this is no laughing matter! In a rare treat for lovers of comics, Comix Magneto showcases the skills and creativity of 27 of Hong Kong's top independent cartoonists and caricaturists.

Enjoy works both old and new, offering multiple perspectives on the theme Desire of Comic Artist, by Yat Muk, Bigsoil, Siuhak, Kongkee, 5M6, Colan Ho, Ho Ka-fai, John Ho, Li Chi-tak, Raymond Doe, Elphonso Lam, Apink, ahko, Ah Hing, Chao Yat, Malone, Mr China, Y P Leong, Alice Mak, Zunzi, Chihoi, Ted Yeung, Danny Yung, Lily Lau, Craig Au Yeung, Laitattatwing and Stella So. There are even some 3D works in the form of Chinese Tangrams.

Comics touch a wide range of issues at the social and personal level, making cartooning an ideal platform for understanding local culture. Hong Kong has a longstanding comics culture, but despite their huge readership, comics haven't been taken seriously as an artform. With this exhibition, the Hong Kong Arts Centre aims to reassert the value of comics in local culture and recognise the status of cartooning as an art medium.

This is programme of Spotlight Hong Kong. Co-presented with Hong Kong Arts Centre.

December 2006

Angkatan Pelukis Aneka Daya (Association of Artists of Various Resources) presents:
reACTION - sangkar

Nine young artists like Harman Bin Hussin, Dino Hafian Bin Ahmad and Rudy Djoharnaen present their responses and reactions to the theme of entrapment, or Sangkar (meaning 'cage' in malay). re-ACTION is a revival of the popular ACTION series in the early nineties with young artists presenting new works. More details

December 2006

Liliane Zumkemi presents:
"WHERE? WHEN? WHY??? A Portrait of Vasan Sitthiket"

220+ pictures hung on a clothesline- enlarged polaroids ( 126 x 52 cm) depict the front and the back of t-shirts. All the t-shirts exhibited belong to the Thai artist Vasan Sitthiket. On each picture there are answers to the questions Where? When? Why?

"Where? When? Why???" had been installed for the exhibition "Story of the "I" at Chiangmai Art Museum in August, 2002,at about studio/about cafe for the project "ART/O-D Series" in Bangkok in May/June 2003, at Mess Hall in Chicago in June 2004 and at the T-shirt festival organized by Fat Radio at Tossapaak in Bangkok in 2005.

The social self of Vasan Sittikhet has become an intriguing subject matter for Liliane Zumkemi to explore. A Bangkok based Swiss artist, Zumkemi works with Sittikhet's t- shirts, which he has consistently produced simultaneously which national events according to domestic and international social political phenomena since the late 1980s. She has photographed his t-shirt series from the back and from the front, interviewed him, and wrote under the images in response to the questions, "where," "when" and "why." It has been an interesting collaboration and process because the t- shirts have transformed Sittikhet's activities and ideas into object of interest for her.

T-shirt also deals with time, and you can read along in a chronological order of the political movements in Thailand. The way she installed them in the space is not straight, but zigzagging. This creates an interesting access point and traffic control for audience compelling them to walk through the rough, and winding road, as a metaphor of our political development with in this country.