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ShanghART Singapore Presents Simplified, a Solo Exhibition by Tang Maohong
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore Singapore, May 2026 — ShanghART Singapore is delighted to present Simplified, a solo exhibition by the Chinese artist Tang Maohong, opening on 16 May 2026 at 4pm. This exhibition brings together a selection of the artist’s latest paintings, developed extensively over the past year following his relocation to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It also marks his return to Singapore after his 2019 solo exhibition, and twenty years since his participation in the first Singapore Biennale.
Tang’s new body of work reflects a significant development in his practice, centered around explorations into the process of painting, and its relationship with the result. The act of painting typically results in two outcomes – the image on the canvas and the mixed colours on the palette. The works stem from the approach of mixing colours directly on the painting surface instead of using a palette. This simple gesture collapses two planes into one, creating a mutually-influencing relationship within the same pictorial space.
Originating from a period of constraint, this approach has been refined over the past year into a more distilled visual language. Tang pares down his compositions to focus on the relationship between the intended image and the residual colour. Deceptively simple, the underlying tension is withheld from the apparent harmonious coexistence of the two elements, experienced only upon prolonged inspection.
Installation view of Simplified, Courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Tang’s practice has consistently engaged with the nature of images and how we perceive them. He initially opted to work with animation for its ability to explore the instability of images through time. Forms derived from the real world would morph, dissolve, and reassemble, remaining familiar yet resistant to fixed interpretations. Over time, this temporal process became increasingly condensed, leading him back to painting. What once unfolded sequentially is now internalised, with shifts and transformations embedded within a single, suspended surface.
Operating between abstraction and figuration across different mediums, Tang’s works often resist immediate recognition. His forms appear familiar yet elusive, inviting sustained attention rather than instant interpretation. At the core of his practice is an ongoing inquiry into perception – how images are formed, how meaning emerges, and how both remain inherently unstable.
Across two decades, Tang has continued to refine and distill his approach, pursuing the same fundamental questions with increasing precision. This presentation marks a pivotal moment in that trajectory. The new paintings bring together image, material, and structure into a tightly resolved yet open-ended condition, where process and result are held in balance. For Tang, painting is not a means of searching for fixed answers, but a reciprocal process in which meaning emerges from the act of painting itself.
“At the end of 2020, I returned from Seoul to Guilin. Due to the pandemic, I was quarantined in a hotel in Shenzhen for two weeks, during which I made some small acrylic paintings on paper. Working under limited conditions, I mixed paints directly on the surface of the work, using it as a palette. As a result, two things remained on the surface: the image I intended to paint, and the colours that would otherwise have stayed on the palette. Every colour thus appeared in duplicates.
This led me to consider reversing the process. If colours are mixed to create a painting, then painting itself can also become a way of mixing colours. In that sense, it becomes natural for the colour patches to remain on the surface and take part in the composition—the painting becomes a palette, where one paints on the palette itself. In the process of painting, the painted image and the color patches shape and complete each other, mutually causal, each with its own integrity.
This is not a new technique, but a way of presenting new relationships on the painted surface: the painted image and the paint that produces it together form a complete composition. These reflect my thoughts on “what to paint” and “how to paint“.
Why do I paint in this way? Because it makes me feel grounded.
What is painting? It is not about solving problems, but about holding myself accountable to time.”
Installation view of Simplified, Courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Venue
ShanghART Singapore, 9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artists
Tang MaohongExhibition Dates
May 16 – June 28, 2026Website
https://www.shanghartgallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghart.singapore/Contact
tianlim@shanghartgallery.comAbout the Artist
Tang Maohong (b.1975, Lingchuan, Guangxi; lives and works in Kuala Lumpur) explores the nature of images and perception across animation and painting. His simultaneously references and subtly unsettles art history and popular culture, integrating diverse visual elements that blur the boundaries between fine art and the everyday. His early animations feature morphing, unstable forms, while his recent paintings condense these transformations into single, suspended surfaces. Absurd, humorous, and quietly confrontational, his works reflect an image-saturated psyche while continually loosening the relationship between representation, material, and visual experience.
He has exhibited across the U.S.A., South Korea, Singapore, India, Germany, Italy, China and has participated in the 7th Shanghai Biennale (2009), the Asian Art Biennial (2007), as well as the inaugural Singapore Biennale (2006).
About ShanghART
ShanghART Gallery was established in Shanghai in 1996. It has since grown to become one of China’s most influential art institutions and a vital player in the development of contemporary art in China, working with over 50 pioneering and emerging artists, including DING Yi, LI Shan, LIN Aojie, Arin RUNGJANG, SUN Xun, Melati SURYODARMO, TANG Da Wu, Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL, XU ZHEN®, YANG Fudong, ZENG Fanzhi, and ZHAO Renhui Robert.
ShanghART Singapore was established in 2012 as the gallery’s Southeast Asia wing, located in the contemporary art cluster Gillman Barracks. The gallery’s first overseas space serves as a platform to introduce Chinese contemporary art to the region while developing collaborations with Southeast Asian artists, facilitating cross-cultural dialogues and enriching artistic exchanges within the global art community.
(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore)
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iPreciation Presents Ink Unbound – Wang Dongling · Chaos Script
Poster credit: iPreciation iPreciation is pleased to present Ink Unbound – Wang Dongling · Chaos Script. The exhibition’s theme originates from Wang’s rich creative practice and his diverse experiences that transcend national borders, paying tribute to Wang’s reimagining of traditional calligraphy with his signature chaotic script.
Grounded in the discipline of classical Chinese calligraphy — not limited to seal script, regular script, and official script — Wang studied under influential masters including Shen Zishan and Lin Sanzhi. Their rigorous instruction instilled in him not only technical precision but also a philosophical understanding of calligraphy as an embodied practice rooted in temporality, discipline, and spontaneity. Wang extends from this lineage, eventually developing his signature chaotic script. This style he pioneered retains structural integrity while loosening formal constraints, opening calligraphy into an expanded field of gestural intensity, spatial dynamism, and improvisational freedom.
Su Shi – When It is Clear, the Ripples Gleam on This Beautiful Lake 蘇軾 – 水光瀲灩晴方好, 2023, Ink, Photography on paper, 63.5 x 83 cm Central to Wang’s contemporary relevance is his reconfiguration of calligraphy as a visual and phenomenological system rather than a strictly linguistic one. His chaotic script resists stable legibility, unfolding instead as a field of energy in which ink disperses, accumulates, and collides across the surface. Meaning emerges through rhythm, density, and spatial tension, inviting viewers into an active process of perception. In this sense, Wang’s work aligns with broader conceptual shifts in contemporary art that privilege experience over interpretation, process over fixed meaning. The dissolution of boundaries between text and image, reading and seeing, is further intensified in his works, where calligraphy becomes a durational, immersive act that extends beyond the confines of the page into lived, embodied experiences.
Li Bai-Farewell at Jingmen Ferry 李白《渡荊門送別》,2019, Ink on paper, 69.5 x 69.5 cm Wang’s chaotic script pioneered an entirely new art form in the realm of contemporary ink art, reflecting ancient wisdom and philosophies tied to Chinese intellectual traditions. Influences from Daoist spontaneity and Zen Buddhist notions of intuition and immediacy are evident in his embrace of improvisation and the relinquishing of rigid control. Rather than viewing chaos as the absence of structure, Wang frames it as a higher form of harmony — an echo of the Daoist idea that apparent disorder can embody a deeper, natural order. In this sense, his chaotic script becomes a visual manifestation of qi (i.e. vital energy), capturing Wang’s state of mind in the moment of creation.
Lao Tzu-Tao Te Ching the Principles of Naturalism 老子《道德經·道法自然》, 2018, Ink on paper, 99 x 66 cm Wang Dongling’s chaotic script contain within them ancient Chinese wisdom and poetry. Through his unique expressive style, Wang expresses reverence for the ancients and engages in dialogue with them. His works have the potential to ignite the viewer’s curiosity, leading them to a deeper appreciation of Chinese culture, revealing that these are not merely abstract works for their own sake. Wang’s works deserve further in-depth understanding and study from our generation!
Installation view of Ink Unbound, Courtesy of iPreciation Venue
iPRECIATION, 50 Cuscaden Road, HPL House #01-01, Singapore 249724Artists
Wang DonglingExhibition Dates
18 May 2026 – 5 June 2026Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday | 9 AM – 6 PM
Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PMWebsite
www.ipreciation.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/ipreciationContact
enquiry@ipreciation.comAbout the Exhibition:
Ink Unbound brings together a selection of 29 smaller works from recent years, tracing the evolution of Wang’s practice within a global artistic context. His works draw upon classical Chinese poetry and philosophy while engaging in dialogue with international modernist and contemporary traditions, from gestural abstraction to avant-garde calligraphy. Rather than reinforcing East–West distinctions, Wang’s practice positions ink as a fluid, transhistorical medium of exchange.
In works such as Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching: The Principles of Naturalism (2018), Wang Dongling reinterprets the Tao Te Ching into a visual field shaped by flux and emergence, where ink gathers and disperses to evoke the formless, generative qualities of the Tao. In Li Bai – Farewell at Jingmen Ferry (2019), he reinterprets themes of departure and emotional distance from Tang Dynasty poetry through asymmetrical compositions of dense and open ink fields, where rhythm and brushwork evoke a melancholic sense of longing. In later works such as Su Shi – When It is Clear, the Ripples Gleam on This Beautiful Lake (2023), Wang incorporates photography, layering calligraphic gesture over images of West Lake to create a dialogue between text, image, and environment, foregrounding shifting perceptions of clarity and obscurity, permanence and ephemerality.
Through ink, gesture, and performance, Ink Unbound proposes Wang’s chaotic script as a living, embodied practice, one that continuously reactivates tradition through experimentation, spontaneity, and transformation.
About the Artist:
Wang Dongling (b. 1945, Jiangsu, China) is a world-renowned leading contemporary ink artist, best known for large-scale performances of “wild cursive” chaotic script, characterized by their dynamic and erratic strokes. His works are deeply rooted in ancient Buddhist and Daoist thought, as well as classical Chinese literati poetry. Wang received his Bachelors from the Nanjing Normal University (Nanjing, China) in 1966 and his Masters from the Calligraphy Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (Hangzhou, China) in 1981.
Wang’s works have been prominently exhibited at prestigious institutions worldwide, including Cambridge University (Cambridge, UK), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, USA), Guggenheim Museum (New York City, USA), National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China), the Palace Museum (Beijing, China) and Asia Society Museum (New York City, USA). They can also be found amongst others in the collections of the British Museum (London, UK), Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong), the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, USA), the Zhejiang Museum of Fine Art, (Hangzhou, China), the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, USA), Harvard University (Cambridge, USA), and the University of California, Berkley (Berkley, USA).
(Text and images courtesy of iPRECIATION)
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ShanghART Singapore Presents Group Exhibition: Everyday We Create Histories
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore Singapore, March 2026 — ShanghART Singapore is pleased to present Everyday We Create Histories, bringing together works by nine artists who offer different ways of looking at, constructing, and questioning history. Spanning across painting, photography, sculpture, and animation, the exhibition provides multiple entry points into the idea of history, positioning artists as observers of the past and artmaking as an act of both remembrance and resistance.
We often understand “history” as a record of past events. Yet not everything that happens becomes history. Events must be witnessed, documented, and circulated before they are collectively remembered as part of history. At each stage, various factors and decisions determine whether an event gets turned into history, and how it is framed. Under such conditions, history reveals itself as contingent and malleable rather than singular and fixed.
Arin RUNGJANG, Abode of Dignity, 2017, Inkjet print on baryta gold fibre gloss paper, river water, embankment soil, Photograph 90 x 160 cm | Painting 90 x 160 cm, Edition of 3 + 1AP It is within this space where artistic practice operates. Artists offer their own readings of the world, attending to the cracks and dents within history through their work. Their efforts range from the everyday to the monumental; from glancing at the recent present to looking at the distant past. Drawing on motifs, crafting narratives, and engaging materiality, the artists created works that invoke intersecting possibilities, suggesting presence as much as absence. What remains unspoken and outside of the frame can at times appear as loud and clear as what is placed before our eyes.
Across diverse contexts and subjects, the artists in Everyday We Create Histories continually examine both present and past, sharing distinctive takes that could shed light on the future as much as reflecting on what has been. The exhibition invites us to look beyond what is visible and read between the lines, encouraging us to reconsider our roles not only as a spectator, but also as active participants in the ongoing making and reading of history, day after day.
Installation view of Everyday We Create Histories Venue
ShanghART Singapore, 9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artists
Lai Yu Tong, Li Shan, Lu Lei, Arin Rungjang, Sun Xun, Melati Suryodarmo, Boedi Widjaja, Xu Zhen, Yang FudongExhibition Dates
14 March – 30 April 2026Website
https://www.shanghartgallery.comInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghart.singapore/Contact
infosg@shanghartgallery.com(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore)
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iPRECIATION Presents a Solo Exhibition: Distance Resonance – Paintings by Willy Tay
Poster credit: iPRECIATION iPRECIATION is delighted to present Distance Resonance – Paintings by Willy Tay, a solo exhibition showcasing the artist’s latest body of works that furthers his exploration of colonial histories and their enduring imprint on contemporary Singapore. Inspired by archival photographs, historical events, and recomposed visual fragments, Tay’s textured oil canvases oscillate between memory and myth. His works transform static images into sites of tension, where the colonial gaze is simultaneously revealed and unsettled.
Central to Distance Resonance – Paintings by Willy Tay is the artist’s wide range of subject matter, including still life, objects, interiors, landscapes, and recomposed photographic snapshots. Tay’s works are largely enigmatic, resisting resolution yet reflecting critically on how power and displacement influence our postcolonial present. Comprising equestrian figures, stoic monuments, and hushed interiors, Tay’s dense compositions bear the weight of accumulated histories. Collectively, these works probe how fragments of collective memory are recontextualized in a postcolonial society that continues to grapple with its hybrid cultural inheritance. The colonial gaze is neither fully present nor absent, nostalgia reveals its fissures, and belonging emerges as an ongoing negotiation.
Deity, 2022, 86 x 146 cm Beneath Tay’s historical inquiry lies a sensitivity to the city’s rhythms – its imposing architecture that interweaves remnants of empire with postcolonial desire. Spanning works from 2022 to the present, the exhibition frames Singapore as a migrant city shaped by the continuous flow of people across its borders. This migrant condition is less a demographic fact than an enduring temporal condition – a mode of inhabiting time with one foot in departure and another in arrival. In this context, the canvas functions as a threshold where distance collapses into proximity and the act of looking becomes an ethical encounter. The past becomes a living interlocuter, reshaping perception, guiding ethical engagement, and sustaining the ongoing work of seeing.
Snowfall, 2025, 104 x 39 cm Among the highlights of this exhibition is Snowfall, in which a seemingly ordinary gathering of men becomes quietly unsettling, suggesting the unseen consequences of decisions whose impact unfolds gradually over time. In Deity, Tay reimagines a historical figure once revered as a benefactor, raising critical questions about how power is remembered and culturally reframed. Meanwhile, Repackaged and retold reflects on the ongoing reinterpretation of Singapore’s histories, underscoring how colonial narratives are continually revised across generations.
The exhibition as a whole affirms painting’s capacity to mediate between rupture and continuity, positioning the canvas as a site where fractures remain suspended in ambiguity. Across these works, history is neither regarded in conclusive terms nor as a burden to be overcome but rather a field of reverberations that influence the present. Through deliberate and sustained acts of looking, viewers are invited to imagine ways of living within a postcolonial society constantly haunted by the shadows of empire.
Repackaged and retold, 2024, 158 x 237 cm Venue
iPRECIATION, 50 Cuscaden Road, HPL House #01-01, Singapore 249724Artists
Willy TayExhibition Dates
April 13 – April 30, 2026Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday | 9 AM – 6 PM Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PMWebsite
https://www.ipreciation.com/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/ipreciationContact
enquiry@ipreciation.comAbout the Artist
Willy Tay (b.1974) graduated from LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore in 1994 with a Diploma in Fine Art (Painting). He continued his studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where he completed his Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) in 1998 and a Master of Arts (Fine Art) in 2004. With a dynamic artistic practice, Tay has participated in prominent solo and group exhibitions in Singapore and internationally. Notable exhibitions include the Impression Culture and Art Festival in Wenjiang Art District of Chengdu, China in 2023, “Do you believe in Angels?” at Equator Art Projects in Singapore and Mo_Space in Manila, Philippines in 2014, “The Realm in the Mirror, the Vision out of Image” at Jinji Lake Art Museum in Suzhou, China in 2013, and “Moments on white” at Osage Gallery in Hong Kong and Singapore in 2007. His most recent group exhibition took place at ART SG with iPRECIATION in Singapore in 2025.
(Text and images courtesy of iPRECIATION)
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National Gallery Singapore Presents a Group Exhibition Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise
Poster credit: National Gallery Singapore National Gallery Singapore presents Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise, its first exhibition comparing five groundbreaking Southeast Asian artists whose practices reshaped artistic and social norms across the region. Opening 9 January 2026, the exhibition gathers more than 45 major artworks by and over 110 rarely seen archival materials of Amanda Heng, Dolorosa Sinaga, Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Nirmala Dutt, and Phaptawan Suwannakudt; many which are being presented in Singapore for the first time.
Spanning performance, painting, photography, sculpture, and archival materials, Fear No Power offers a rare comparative perspective on how these women used art not only as a form of expression to challenge dominant cultural narratives, but as a means of social engagement, resistance, and collective care. Beyond their individual artistic practices, these five artists have played influential roles as educators, writers, organisers, and community builders whose work shaped cultural conversations within and beyond the art world. Working across overlapping decades from the 1960s to the 2020s, these artists developed their practices during a period when women in Southeast Asia were navigating deeply entrenched patriarchal norms. Artistic and cultural fields were largely male dominated, with women’s roles often confined to the domestic sphere, and issues such as care work, reproductive labour, political dissent, and gendered violence were marginalised or rendered invisible in public discourse. Against this backdrop, the artists in Fear No Power used art to challenge who could speak, what could be represented, and whose experiences were considered worthy of attention.
Ms Horikawa Lisa, Director, Curatorial & Collections at National Gallery Singapore says, “Across Southeast Asia, artists have exercised power through art that was grounded in lived experience. Fear No Power foregrounds how women have long used artistic practice to respond to social and political realities, and to imagine ways of living and working otherwise. This exhibition reflects the Gallery’s ongoing commitment to recognising diverse perspectives and placing such long-overlooked narratives at the centre of our shared understanding of art.”
Installation view of Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise, National Gallery Singapore, 2026, Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore In their respective countries, each of these women is recognised as a prominent figure who reshaped artistic practices and social conversations across Southeast Asia:
● Amanda Heng is a critical voice in Singapore’s contemporary art scene. Through performance, photography, and participatory works, she created spaces for dialogue around identity, gendered social expectations, and the value of housework, inviting audiences to reflect critically on the dynamics of everyday life.
● Dolorosa Sinaga is widely regarded as one of Indonesia’s most important sculptors and a leading advocate for human rights. Drawing from the country’s cultural and political landscape, her figurative sculptures foreground unacknowledged histories, shared struggles, and collective resilience, with women often positioned at the centre of resistance and solidarity.
● Imelda Cajipe Endaya is a key figure in Philippine art and co-founder of the feminist art collective KASIBULAN (est. 1987). Her multidisciplinary practice, spanning printmaking, painting, collage, and mixed media, recasts women as active, conscious subjects engaged with the social, political, and cultural conditions of the Philippines.
● Nirmala Dutt addressed the social and environmental costs of urban development in Malaysia, focusing on the lived struggles of women, children, and indigenous communities. Through painting and photography, her socially engaged works challenged environmental injustice and expanded the role of the artist as a civic actor.
● Phaptawan Suwannakudt, trained in Thai Buddhist mural painting, works with memory, tradition, and the gendered structures embedded within artistic lineages. By reinterpreting this visual language, she expanded a traditionally male-dominated practice
to reflect women’s experiences, migration, and lived histories.
Installation view of Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise, National Gallery Singapore, 2026, Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore By bringing these five figures together, Fear No Power positions them not only as artists, but as trailblazers whose practices shaped artistic and social conversations across Southeast Asia, and whose legacies continue to resonate today. The exhibition title is drawn from Dolorosa Sinaga’s sculpture on display Fear No Power (2003) and celebrates the artists’ fearlessness in their artistic journeys. It aims to remind that ‘power’ not only refers to the political and authoritarian, but to one’s own inner strength and capacity for resistance, care, and responsibility to others. By extension, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on what courage might mean to them, and how that strength can be extended to the communities they inhabit.
Presented across three interconnected zones, the exhibition traces how the artists’ practices moved between personal experience, resistance, and collective action. Where the Body Thinks, Worlds Open begins with works rooted in lived experience, reflecting on the body, memory, domestic space, and artistic inheritance as these artists navigated gendered expectations. The second zone, Refusal and Hope, examines how these personal perspectives informed the artists’ responses to wider political, environmental, and social issues. The works bear witness to women’s often overlooked participation in public life and address inequality, displacement, and social change through acts of resistance grounded in everyday realities. The exhibition concludes with Imagining Otherwise, which highlights how these artists’ work and commitments extended beyond individual artmaking, building collectives, sustaining traditions, and creating spaces for dialogue, support, and solidarity.
By bringing together these five artistic practices in these different zones, Fear No Power invites visitors to engage closely with the works, uncover their layered meanings, and see how each artist drew on her own lived context to challenge gendered norms in art and everyday life – reimagining both inner and outer worlds on her own terms.
Installation view of Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise, National Gallery Singapore, 2026, Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore Venue
1 St Andrew’s Road, Singapore 178957Artists
Amanda Heng, Dolorosa Sinaga, Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Nirmala Dutt, and Phaptawan SuwannakudtExhibition Dates
January 9 – November 15, 2026Gallery Hours
Daily| 10 AM – 7 PMWebsite
https://www.nationalgallery.sgInstagram
https://www.instagram.com/nationalgallerysingapore/Contact
https://www.nationalgallery.sg/sg/en/contactAbout National Gallery Singapore
National Gallery Singapore is a leading visual arts institution and the largest modern and contemporary art museum in Southeast Asia. Dedicated to making art accessible to all, the Gallery engages audiences of all ages through its exhibitions, educational programmes, and public festivals.
Home to the world’s largest public collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian art, the Gallery is redefining the region’s art history through pioneering research, strategic acquisitions, and thoughtfully curated exhibitions. By offering new perspectives, it recontextualises the region’s artistic contributions within global narratives.
Located in the heart of the Civic District, the Gallery is housed in two national monuments – the City Hall and former Supreme Court – making it an iconic cultural landmark where architectural grandeur meets deep historical significance.
A vibrant cultural destination, the Gallery has been ranked among Asia’s Top 10 most visited museums by The Art Newspaper since 2019. It has also received accolades at the Singapore Tourism Awards, including “Best Leisure Event” for Light to Night Festival 2020 and “Outstanding Leisure Event” for Gallery Children’s Biennale 2021.
As a registered Charity and an Institute of Public Character, the Gallery relies on public support to expand its collection, advance research, and bring art to more people, shaping cultural discourse and inspiring creativity for generations to come.
(Text and images courtesy of National Gallery Singapore)
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ShanghART Singapore Annexe Presents Immortal Words :: 字基, a Solo Exhibition by Boedi Widjaja
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore Annexe Boedi Widjaja’s solo exhibition “Immortal Words :: 字基” is now on view at ShanghART Singapore Annexe, running through 1 March. The project splices poetry with genetic code, meditating on the diasporic condition.The artist asks: if history is displaced, how might it take up new space through the body? His four-line toponymic poem spatialises as DNA nano-sculptures—line, circle, cube—released through a gachapon machine, with a microfluidic molecular writing process unspooled on video. A living participatory work realized with geneticist Eric Yap, and with the support of NAC Creation Grant, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Institute of Digital Molecular Analytics and Science, NTU Singapore.
Boedi Widjaja (b. 1975, Indonesia; based in Singapore) explores migration through the conceptual frames of house, home and homeland, engaging with space and semiotics. Trained in architecture and design, Boedi works across media—from bio art and performance to experimental photography and architectural installations—often combining scientific phenomena with poetic gesture.
Widjaja received the inaugural QAGOMA and Singapore Art Museum co-commission for his Black–Hut series, presented at the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial (2018-19) and the 6th Singapore Biennale (2019-20). His works have been included in international group shows such as Thailand Biennale: The Open World, Chiang Rai, Thailand (2023); Cladogram: KMA’s 2nd International Juried Biennial, Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2021), in which he was awarded First Prize; MAP1: Waterways, Diaspora Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale (2017); Jerusalem Biennale (2017); Yinchuan Biennale (2016); From east to the Barbican, Barbican, London (2015); Infinity in flux, ArtJog, Indonesia (2015); and Bains Numériques #7, Enghien-les-Bains, France (2012) amongst others. Recent solo exhibitions include Kang Ouw《侠客行》(2022), Esplanade Tunnel, Singapore; Declaration of (2019), Helwaser Gallery, New York; Rivers and lakes Tanah dan air (2018), ShanghART Singapore; and Black—Hut (2016), Singapore Biennale Affiliate Project, ICA Singapore. He was an Artist-in-Residence at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Temenggong Singapore and DRAWinternational France.
Installation view of Immortal Words :: 字基, Courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Annexe Venue
ShanghART Singapore Annexe, 9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artists
Boedi WidjajaExhibition Dates
17 January – 1 March, 2026Gallery Hours
Wednesday – Sunday | 12PM – 6 PMWebsite
https://www.shanghartgallery.com/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghartgallery/Contact
infosg@shanghartgallery.com(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore Annexe)
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Singapore Art Museum Presents Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention
Poster credit: Singapore Art Museum Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is thrilled to announce a diverse line-up of more than 80 artists for the highly anticipated Singapore Biennale 2025 (SB2025). Commissioned by National Arts Council, Singapore (NAC) and organised by SAM, the eighth edition invites audiences to rediscover Singapore through the transformative lens of art, fostering deep reflections on contemporary life and our collective future. Set against the backdrop of Singapore’s 60th birthday and presented as an SG60 signature event, SB2025 is anchored by the theme ‘pure intention’. Within this framework, art functions as a lens to view the evolution of Singapore’s urban and social environment. It demonstrates how art reframes the everyday, inviting us to reconsider the people, spaces, and layered histories that shape who we are, both individually and as a society.
This edition features over 100 artworks, including more than 30 new commissions. Speaking through diverse media, participating artists from Singapore and Southeast Asia, as well as Argentina, Australia, Germany, India, South Korea, Türkiye, the United States and beyond present a timely global survey. Together with curators Duncan Bass, Hsu Fang-Tze, Ong Puay Khim, and Selene Yap—alongside curatorial contributors from Singapore and around the world—the artists will engage with the city’s evolving architectural, social, and cultural landscape, connecting Singaporean realities with shared global experiences.
Through the lens of Pure Intention, artists and audiences are invited to look closer at the rituals and lived experiences that have shaped our urban environment through the Biennale’s presence across the island. Audiences are invited to embark on a journey of discovery as they encounter art in unexpected places—from pre-colonial and colonial landmarks to shopping malls, historic housing estates, and greenspaces. Locations include Rail Corridor South, Wessex Estate, Tanglin Halt, Civic District, Orchard and SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, among others. Complementing these are roving projects designed to spark artistic discovery within the fabric of our everyday lives. Expansive in scale and spirit, SB2025 hopes to spark critical dialogue on contemporary issues with a Southeast Asian lens.
Installation view of Young-Jun Tak’s Love Was Taught Last Friday (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Everyday Places Quietly Charged
This edition of the Singapore Biennale highlights the stories that anchor places to people. For instance, the Rail Corridor is a 24-kilometre path that embodies Singapore’s memories—both as a former commercial railway route and as a present-day nature trek for recreation and appreciation of biodiversity. The residential neighbourhoods adjacent to the Rail Corridor, including the black-and-white colonial buildings of Wessex Estate and the public housing flats at Tanglin Halt built in the 1960s, were profoundly influenced by the tracks’ presence. For decades, the railway was a silent witness to progress, ferrying goods and people, carrying with it the material imprints of regional development. Today, this continuous green passageway not only safeguards our history of cross-border interactions but also actively cultivates new pathways for contemporary movement and discovery.
The Rail Corridor and Adjacent Neighbourhoods feature artwork highlights such as an installation by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) and Guo-Liang Tan (Singapore), which reimagines the scrolled theatre backdrops characteristic in Weerasethakul’s films as a kinetic outdoor installation. Artist Emily Floyd (Australia) presents a new rendition of her Field Library series, a vibrant sculptural installation situated amidst the greenery of Wessex Estate, which functions as both a gathering space and an open-access library. At the Tanglin Halt market, Joo Choon Lin’s (Singapore) immersive performance installation challenges the conventions of human perception: where the world around us is pictured as activity, event, and movement.
Installation view of Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Guo-Liang Tan’s Two Who Remember the Sea (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Rueangrith Suntisuk 
Installation view of Emily Floyd’s Field Library (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Monuments to Material Histories
Within the heart of Singapore’s Civic District, SB2025 activates monuments and spaces with artworks that facilitate new encounters, inviting audiences to further understand histories and personal stories.
Installation view of Ayesha Singh’s Continuous Coexistences (Singapore) (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Fort Canning Park has been a royal seat, colonial stronghold, and site of Singapore’s first experimental and botanical garden. Now a public park, the site-responsive artworks respond to these histories, while sharing stories of individual and collective resilience. For instance, at the Raffles House Lawn, Ayesha Singh’s (India) Continuous Coexistences (Singapore) is a larger-than-life outdoor sculpture that transforms an architectural line drawing into a physical installation. Viewed from different angles, the outlines of iconic structures emerge and collapse against the surrounding skyline, prompting audiences to reconsider how our built environment evolves.
Gala Porras-Kim (Colombia/USA/United Kingdom) encourages audiences to reflect on labour and rest by celebrating the Sunday gatherings of migrant worker communities through their poetry. National Gallery Singapore’s Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission, Temple by Tuan Andrew Nguyen (Vietnam/USA) invites audiences to take part in the creation of a healing soundscape and contemplate land, history, and conflict, by interacting with the monumental installation that features elements made from defused unexploded ordnance found in the Quảng Trị province of central Vietnam. Adjacent to the historic Fort Gate, Kapwani Kiwanga’s (Canada/France) Flowers for Africa: Rwanda recreates a triumphal arc based on archival documentation and constructed of fresh foliage to commemorate Rwanda’s independence. Curatorial contributor Asian Film Archive (Singapore) will present a multidisciplinary project in conjunction with their 20th anniversary, featuring three newly commissioned installations and an experimental film programme excavating the layers of loss, decay, and the possibilities of re-emergence within the film archive.
Collectively Shaping Social Spaces
Singapore Biennal 2025 examines Singapore’s strata-titled malls, presenting them as case studies of how familiar everyday spaces transform and adapt amidst rapid urban development. These privately owned, strata-titled retail developments, such as Lucky Plaza and Far East Shopping Centre, emerged from Singapore’s property policies before the turn of the millennium. Yet, they cultivated distinctive cultural ecosystems that defy standardisation. The unique ownership structures have enabled immigrant entrepreneurs and niche communities to flourish, preserving vital pockets of social diversity in the face of the city-state’s growth. By engaging with these sites, the Biennale invites reflection on how layered histories persist within—and even because of—Singapore’s fast-paced transformation.
Installation view of Eisa Jocson’s The Filipino Superwoman X H.O.M.E. Karaoke Living Room (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum In collaboration with H.O.M.E. and Filipino domestic workers in Singapore, Eisa Jocson (the Philippines) presents a new commission through a series of karaoke videos. Visitors are encouraged to sing along to these personal anthems of inspiration, struggle, and perseverance in a retail unit at Lucky Plaza. Artworks by Tan Pin Pin (Singapore) explore Singapore’s contrasting temporalities to reflect on how the city’s pasts, presents and futures collide in a landscape shaped by artificial containment and capitalist acceleration. Water Under The Bridge/A Bridge Under Water, a multimedia installation by curatorial contributor The Packet (Sri Lanka), adopts the form of an internet café to present a stream of existing and newly commissioned works. At 20 Anderson Road, Riar Rizaldi’s (Indonesia) Mirage: Agape further blurs the lines of dream and reality by exploring the relationship between science and spiritual knowledge systems. Also at the same site, PRIMAL INSTINCT, staged by curatorial contributor Hothouse (Singapore), presents new works by Salad Dressing, Tini Aliman, and Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee within a reconceived grass field.
Installation view of Tan Pin Pin’s On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (2025), as part of Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum 
Installation view of Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee’s TOTAL-PLEASURE-SUITE as part of Hothouse’s PRIMAL INSTINCT (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Conversations Between Past and Present
At Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore Biennal 2025 draws connections between works from Singapore’s National Collection and contemporary practices. Expanding on the theme of Pure Intention, the Biennale will reflect the far-reaching impact of Singapore’s rapid urban development on its citizens. This creates a compelling dialogue, juxtaposing historic paintings, prints, and photographs by Liu Kang (Singapore) (1911–2004), Lim Mu Hue (Singapore) (1936–2008), Lim Yew Kuan (Singapore) (1928–2021), and Wu Peng Seng (Singapore) (1915–2006) against contemporary artworks. In SAM’s Gallery 1, Pierre Huyghe’s (France/Chile) Offspring is a dreamlike installation that uses local climatic conditions and visitor proximity to manipulate light, smoke and an algorithmic score into infinite variations, making each encounter with the work unique. Audiences can also encounter Figures, dedications, and civilisations by curatorial contributor Hyphen— (Indonesia), a constellation of artworks that trace alternative political narratives and citizen-led initiatives to conserve Indonesia’s historical dioramas—recasting their figures, reanimating lost possibilities, and challenging the imbalances they were made to preserve.
Installation view of Griya Seni Hj. Kustiyah Edhi Sunarso, Hyphen—, Tom Nicholson with Ary “Jimged” Sendy, Aufa Ariaputra, Nasikin, Omar Aryarindra ’s Sesudah banjir itu: No. 44 (When the flood is over: No. 44) (2025), as part of Hyphen—’s Tokoh-tokoh, pengabdian, dan peradaban (Figures, dedications and civilisations) (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Several artworks will also be displayed throughout the city over the course of the Biennale, continuing to bring art into the everyday. Akira Takayama/Port B (Japan), directed by Akira Takayama, is set to present a newly commissioned project in collaboration with students from the National University of Singapore’s Architecture Department. The initiative will take the form of a pop-up board game centre, designed to guide audiences in exploring Singapore. It will be presented at regional libraries in Woodlands, Jurong, and Tampines, as well as 20 Anderson Road.
SB2025 will run from 31 October 2025 to 29 March 2026. A list of participating artists is also available on the Singapore Biennale’s website. An admission ticket is required for entry to Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, one of the main Biennale venues. All other sites, located in publicly accessible spaces across the city, are free and open to all.
Installation view of Young-jun Tak’s Love Was Taught Last Friday‘ (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, and Kei Imazu’s Pelvis and Rhizome (2023), Harvesting from the Buried Goddess Body (2023) and Memories of the Land/Body (2020), As part of Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum 
Installation view of Adrian Wong’s With Hate from Hong Kong (2025), Commissioned by Singapore Art Museum for Singapore Biennale 2025: Pure Intention, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Venue
Singapore Art Museum (39 Keppel Rd, #01-02 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065) and Citywide VenuesArtists
77 Artists and 4 Contributors (for full list of names please visit Singapore Art Museum Website)Exhibition Dates
31 October, 2025 – 29 March, 2026Gallery Hours
Daily | 10 AM – 7 PMWebsite
Welcome to Singapore Art Museum (SAM)Instagram
www.instagram.com/singaporeartmuseumContact
www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/about/contact(Text and images courtesy of Singapore Art Museum)
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Singapore Art Museum Presents Talking Objects and The Living Room
Poster credit: Singapore Art Museum Singapore Art Museum (SAM) presents Talking Objects and The Living Room starting on September 12th, 2025. Together, they explore how artworks that are both tangible and ephemeral transform meaning across time, offering new perspectives with each encounter. Featuring 23 works by 22 artists from 11 countries across Asia, the exhibitions draw from the collection of SAM alongside selected works from the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), and include newly commissioned performances and activations.
Talking Objects considers how the symbolic charge of commonplace items can speak to personal and collective histories, offering varied ways of reading the world through embedded narratives. In parallel, The Living Room reflects on how performance-based practices are remembered, reinterpreted, and sustained over time. Conceived as an open, evolving space, the exhibition reimagines the gallery as a site of gathering, exchange, and continual activation. The Living Room marks the final chapter of Collection Project: Communicating, Convening, Commoning, a three-part collaboration between SAM, SeMA and QAGOMA, which explores shared approaches to collection-building and curatorial practice across the Asia Pacific.
Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, Chief Curator of SAM, says: “Talking Objects and The Living Room offer distinct yet interconnected approaches to understanding how art carries memory, generates meaning, and invites dialogue across geographies and generations. By bringing together objects, ideas, and processes, the exhibitions challenge conventional frameworks of collecting and exhibiting, opening up new possibilities for how audiences might encounter, interpret, and participate in contemporary art. Together, they reflect SAM’s commitment to advancing Southeast Asian perspectives and strengthening collaborations with international partners. They also reaffirm our vision of SAM as a site of research, connection, and exchange – where collecting is conceived as an evolving and critical process, shaped by and responsive to the complexities of the world we live in.”
Exhibition view of Talking Objects, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Talking Objects
Talking Objects brings together works from the collection of SAM that explore how everyday items, familiar scenes, and common representations become carriers of memory and emotion when transformed into objects of art. The exhibition invites visitors to slow down and engage deeply with objects that embody histories, identities, and lived experiences. By examining materials and forms transformed by artists’ gestures, Talking Objects explore devices of meaning-making in art and offer fresh ways for thinking about the world around us.
In the exhibition, Subodh Gupta’s Hungry God commands attention, confronting viewers with a cascading pile of gleaming stainless-steel household wares. Gupta’s use of these quotidian objects captures the multitudes of definitions and conditions of contemporary India. Here, the towering pile of ubiquitous vessels stands as a witness to economic and social transformations and cultural representations — like a mountain of offerings to a “hungry god”, the work is a compelling reflection of shifting symbolisms brought about by the global industry.
Exhibition view of Subodh Gupta’s Hungry God, 2005–2006, As part of Talking Objects at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum The effect of globalisation on local economies is also alluded to in Alwin Reamillo’s Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project (3rd Movement: Manila-Fremantle-Singapore). Central to the installation is a piano reconstructed from discarded parts of a workshop owned by the artist’s father, who was once the only maker of grand pianos in the Philippines, until the workshop closed with the rise of affordable electronic and factory-made pianos. Created in remembrance of his father, Reamillo collaborated with the craftsmen who used to work at the piano workshop to craft the instrument. More than a portrait of his father, the work weaves together family legacy, artisanship, and a personal history of relocation. Importantly, it is also a ‘social sculpture’ – from involving the craftsmen to inviting audiences to play the piano – the work carries in its materiality a spirit of community and solidarity.
Exhibition view of Alwin Reamillo’s Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project (3rd Movement: Manila-Fremantle-Singapore), 2007–2009, As part of Talking Objects at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum The interweaving of personal stories with social histories and experiences is one of the common threads in the exhibition. Nguyen Phuong Linh’s Trung Ma – Endless, Sightless presents a still life of a beauty parlour, portraying an industry brought about by the perceived societal standards of beauty. In the video, images are viewed through a veil of smoke and curtains. Here, the beauty parlour becomes a metaphor for how the proximity of service industries in our lives obscures the lived realities of women navigating globalised labour.
Metaphors and representations of the body and human condition is another key thread in the exhibition. Suzann Victor’s Third World Extra Virgin Dreams comprises a bed suspended from the ceiling and draped with a 10m long tapestry of blood stained lenses. Staging the site for where life both begins and ends, where dreams and nightmares, strength and vulnerability, play out, the work is an invitation to be keenly aware of the body’s performance of desire and fragility.
A similar contemplation of life is core to Christine Ay Tjoe’s Lama Sabakhtani #03. A stripped-back typewriter, bathed in an emotive composition of sound, sits in solitude, its bare keys resembling outstretched fingers seeking a connection. When certain keys are pressed, the musical composition changes. Triggered by (human) interaction, an allegorical effect emerges as emotions are evoked through the collection of sound and the pain on our fingertips. For the artist, it is a meditation on the overcoming of sadness and the joy that accompanies it through a life that seeks to connect.
Exhibition view of Talking Objects, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum Accompanying the artworks is a digital exhibition guide that leads visitors through the exhibition space, highlighting dialogues between different artworks and offering multiple readings through the voices of the artists, curators and writers. Talking Objects is an invitation to take a close look at the world around us and seek new ways of seeing, thinking and meaning.
The Living Room
The Living Room brings together performance-based works from the collections of SAM, SeMA and QAGOMA, alongside invited artists, that engage with liveness, temporality, and impermanence. Through archival traces, re-enactments, activations, and conversations, the exhibition invites visitors into a shared space where performance continues to unfold, taking new shape through memory, encounter, and exchange. Like a living room in the home, it is both personal and communal: a place to gather, reflect and allow works to be revisited, reimagined and even co-created.
Exhibition view of The Living Room, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum The exhibition reflects on what remains after the ‘live’ moment of a performance has passed. Nearly a decade on, Ezzam Rahman returns to his 2015 performance Allow Me to Introduce Myself—now with an adapted title Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself—not to restage the past, but to meet it in the present. His talcum-powder rituals, typically defined by the scattering of powder with each breath and movement, are now shaped by the changes in his ageing body and evolving relationship to performance. In this setting, the act of return becomes a way to attend to the passage of time – resisting nostalgia while asking how the body carries and reshapes what it has
already lived.This attention to the life of a work – and to care for it at the point of its transformation – shapes the presentation of Chia Chuyia’s Knitting the Future, a five-week durational performance staged in 2016 in which she wove a full-length garment from strands of leek. Over the years, the once pliable and green material has dried and become fragile. Shown here with video documentation of its making, the work is not presented to recreate the original performance, but to acknowledge what it has become. During Singapore Art Week 2026 (22 to 31 January 2026), the garment will be activated for a final time, with a performance that tends to its final moments and lays it to rest – framing performance itself as a form of care and asking what it means to close a work with intention.
Installation view of Chia Chuyia’s Knitting the Future, 2016, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum In a similarly reflective register, Jeremy Hiah’s Performance Journal Scroll maps two decades of artistic activity across a ten-metre hand-drawn scroll. Its figures and scenes shift between remembered events and imagination, layering time and meaning into a single visual field. Presented alongside archival footage of performances staged in public spaces, galleries, and the artist’s own living room, the work foregrounds drawing as an active performative gesture, one that resists fixing the past and instead treats memory as something that can be reanimated each time it is encountered.
Brian Fuata works with improvisation as both method and material, shaping each performance in response to the space, context and people present. Rarely repeated in the same form, his works unfold through a mix of spoken word, movement and unscripted interactions that generate a charged presence in the room. Within The Living Room, his performance Minor Gestures (a conduit in the living room) will take place as a structured improvisation generated on-site, responding to both the exhibition and its physical containment. While the work may exist only in the moment it is enacted, the space after often retains a residual charge that lingers beyond the event. Brian’s improvised performance injects the space with electrifying energies – an invisible yet potent aftereffect that lingers beyond the live encounter. This prompts the question of how such energies might be carried forward for audiences who encounter the exhibition later. This tension – between the immediacy of the unpredictable encounter and its afterlife – sits at the heart of Fuata’s practice and of the exhibition’s interest in how performance continues to live on after the event itself.
Exhibition view of The Living Room, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum 
Installation view of Kim Ga Ram’s ACS#2: The AGENDA Hair Salon, 2016 Düsseldorf-Project, 2016, As part of The Living Room at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum The question of how performance histories are carried forward takes shape in Nam Hwayeon’s Ehera Noara. Inspired by pioneering Korean dancer Choi Seung-hee’s original 1933 performance of the same name – now surviving only through a handful or archival photographs and written accounts – Nam draws from these fragments to construct a living performance archive, realised in the body of performer Chung Ji Hye. Moving between Choi’s era and the present, they fill in the absences between surviving moments, tracing a line of influence across generations. In The Living Room, the work functions both as archive and performance, reflecting on how embodied practices are remembered, transmitted, and reinterpreted as they pass from one body to another over time.
Kim Ga Ram’s participatory project The AGENDA Hair Salon (2014-ongoing), previously staged in Seoul and Dusseldorf, also changes with each iteration. In this version, presented at the upcoming Singapore Art Week, the gallery becomes a functioning hair salon where Kim, trained in hairdressing, offers visitors a free haircut in exchange for conversation. Participants may choose a slogan-printed cape and decide how much hair to part with, turning the haircut into a symbolic gesture of personal belief or solidarity. By placing this intimate, everyday act in a public setting, the work transforms it into a space for exchange, vulnerability and care – asking how small ordinary gestures can carry the weight of performance long after the encounter has ended.
Throughout its run, The Living Room will include a series of performance activations by participating artists. The full schedule will be made available on the website of Singapore Art Museum. Audiences can participate in programmes such as live performances, performance activations, curator-led tours, and artist talks and conversations – opportunities to connect more deeply with the exhibitions’ themes and gain insight into the distinctive practices of the featured artists. More information about Talking Objects and The Living Room can be found on the museum’s website.
Venue
39 Keppel Rd, #01-02 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065, Level 3, Gallery 4Artists
Christine Ay Tjoe, Simryn Gill, Subodh Gupta, Nilo Ilarde, Myat Kyawt, Nguyễn Huy An, Nguyễn Phương Linh, Po Po, Alwin Reamillo, Sim Chi Yin, Gerardo Tan, Suzann Victor, Chia Chuyia, Brian Fuata, Jeremy Hiah, Tehching Hsieh, Kim Ga Ram, Lee Kun-yong, Nam Hwayeon, Ezzam Rahman, Rim Dong-sik, Wong Hoy CheongExhibition Dates
12 September, 2025 – 19 July, 2026Gallery Hours
Daily | 10 AM – 7 PMWebsite
Welcome to Singapore Art Museum (SAM)Instagram
www.instagram.com/singaporeartmuseumContact
www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/about/contact(Text and images courtesy of Singapore Art Museum)
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ShanghART Singapore Presents The Dogs, a Solo Exhibition by Lai Yu Tong
Poster credit: ShanghART Singapore ShanghART Singapore is pleased to present Lai Yu Tong’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, The Dogs, opening on 30 August 2025. Featuring a new series of works that centres around his encounters with a pack of stray dogs, the artist invites us to reconsider our relationship with entities that exist on the fringes of our environments, while reflecting upon his own experiences and interactions with the dogs across several months.
Lai Yu Tong, The Dogs (Feet), 2025, Graphite on paper, beeswax, 7 x 14 cm, Framed size: 53 x 61 x 4.5 cm Drawing upon observations of the present, Lai’s practice examines the overlooked and neglected. Everyday objects and subjects such as cars, crows, hands, and chairs feature as motifs across his works that are cast within the stories and scenarios that he creates around them. By looking at something for extended periods of time, he brings out alternative perspectives on the familiar. Recently, his gaze fixates upon the stray dogs that he encounters around a forested area close to where he lives. Their existence as wild, untamed and shy creatures that roam under the shadows of Singapore intrigues him.
Lai Yu Tong, The Dogs (Burnt Hole), 2025, Cardboard, 20 x 25.5 cm, Framed size: 62 x 79 x 4.5 cm In a highly developed and controlled society, the presence of these dogs introduces a degree of unpredictability, even instilling a sense of danger. Initial encounters with them ended with Lai retreating out of fear. However, following multiple visits where he would observe, photograph and sometimes feed the dogs, the fear that he felt eventually shifts into a kind of love, as he forms a connection with these misunderstood creatures.
Lai Yu Tong, Dog (Greywash), 2025, Emulsion paint on pine wood, 55 x 80 x 12 cm Storytelling makes up a big part of Lai’s approach, manifesting in forms such as drawing, sculpture, and sound. In these latest works, Lai seeks to retell his encounters with these enigmatic creatures through intimate pieces of drawings and collages on various modest everyday materials — cardboard, wood, and paper. He simultaneously draws and obscures the dogs, playing with techniques of erasure and transparency that render his subjects as ghostly figures and impressions. Such loose methods of representation allude to the elusiveness and placelessness of the subjects he draws, whilst also allowing them to take on other identities and connotations.
Lai Yu Tong, The Dogs (Road), 2025, Soft pastel on gesso board, 22.5 x 30 x 2 cm, Framed size: 53 x 61 x 4.5 cmThrough a selection of two-dimensional works, a sculpture, a sound piece and a performance, the gallery space is transformed into a site of encounter between the audience and the dogs. Bridging the distance between us and them through Lai’s own experiences, the exhibition encourages visitors to empathise and identify with the beings that live on the edges of our environments; out of sight and away from what we are familiar with.
Venue
9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108937Artist
Lai Yu TongExhibition Dates
August 30 – November 9, 2025Gallery Hours
Wednesday – Saturday | 12 – 6 PMWebsite
https://www.shanghartgallery.com/Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/shanghart.singaporeContact
info@shanghartsingapore.comAbout Artist
Lai Yu Tong is an artist from Singapore who works across drawing, image-making, sculpture and sound. His practice is interested in creating adequate media to articulate the present, believing in the intrinsic need for humans to make images and tell stories. Recent works of his consider how art can evoke empathy in a world so damaged.
Lai has presented his work at group exhibitions in Singapore and abroad, most recently at Radio28 (MX), Plague Space (RUS) and Barely Art Fair (US); and held solo exhibitions in Singapore at Temporary Unit (2022), The Substation (2021), Comma Space (2020), and DECK (2019).
Besides his art, Lai regularly publishes books under Thumb Books, a self-founded press that makes children’s books for both children and adults. His recent curatorial projects include Frida (2023), an exhibition platform by his kitchen window; and Robin (2022), a series of group exhibitions held in camping tents around Singapore.About Gallery
ShanghART Gallery was established in Shanghai in 1996. It has since grown to become one of China’s most influential art institutions and a vital player in the development of contemporary art in China, working with over 50 pioneering and emerging artists, including DING Yi, HAN Mengyun, LI Shan, LIN Aojie, Arin RUNGJANG, SUN Xun, Melati SURYODARMO, TANG Da Wu, Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL, XU ZHEN®, YANG Fudong, ZENG Fanzhi, and ZHAO Renhui Robert.
ShanghART Singapore was established in 2012 as the gallery’s Southeast Asia wing, located in the contemporary art cluster Gillman Barracks. The gallery’s first overseas space serves as a platform to introduce Chinese contemporary art to the region while developing collaborations with Southeast Asian artists, facilitating cross-cultural dialogues and enriching artistic exchanges within the global art
community.(Text and images courtesy of ShanghART Singapore)
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Cuturi Gallery Presents Sixty Summers Here
Poster credit: Cuturi Gallery Singapore, 2 July 2025— Cuturi Gallery is proud to present Sixty Summers Here, celebrating a generation of ten young Singaporean artists in their 20s and 30s, whose practices embody the vitality and resilience of contemporary art-making. Marking Singapore’s 60th year of independence, the exhibition brings together works across painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, with a focus on process and nuanced observations of everyday life. Their practices, rooted in care and creative rigour, offer quiet but powerful propositions for how art can persist, connect, and continue to evolve. Collectively, they signal not just what is emerging, but what is already here—and here to stay.
Yom Bo Sung, Rest of the World, 2025, Polymer clay, wood, 31 x 22 x 28 cm This exhibition is anchored by a line of inquiry structured around five open-ended questions: Who is here, what is here, where is here, when is here, and why here? These are not posed as rhetorical or diagnostic prompts, but as entry points for reflection.
The exhibition features Singaporean artists Aisha Rosli, Anna Du Toit, Casey Tan, Faris Heizer, Joel Seow, Marla Bendini, Oneal Parbo, Shen Jiaqi, Vanessa Liem, and Yom Bo Sung. Each artist presents a distinct perspective on what it means to create within the art scene today. What connects them is a shared attentiveness to their environments and a willingness to navigate ambiguity between comfort and restlessness, visibility and marginality, structure and improvisation. In the context of this commemorative year, the exhibition invites reflection on how artistic practices are shaped by place, time, and change. Rather than prescribing conclusions, Sixty Summers Here encourages viewers to slow down and attend to what is already unfolding. The works reflect a scene still in formation: sensitive, deliberate, and grounded in the present. Sixty Summers Here will be on view at 61 Aliwal Street, Singapore 199937, from 12 July to 8 August 2025.
Shen Jiaqi, The City with No Seasons, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 110 x 155 cm 
Faris Heizer, Take Five, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 100 x 120 cm Opening Performance by Marla Bendini: Conteng at 6 pm on July 12th
In the exhibition performance, Marla Bendini offers an act of communion—through movement, guzheng, and voice. Drawing from her tree rubbing works, she explores presence memory, and kinship with the land and more-than-human bodies.
The guzheng’s resonant strings and her voice become extensions of touch, sounding out what cannot be spoken, listening to what lingers. Each gesture is a ritual of care, rooted in slowness and reciprocity. A return to places once lived in, feelings once held, kinships yet to be fully known. It says: we were here, we are still here, and our stories are alive—held by the trees, the soil, and each other.
Aisha Rosli, Sun in My Face / Did Not Ask for a Life This Difficult, 2025, Acrylic, oil, charcoal and fabric on canvas, 90 x 86 cm Venue
Singapore: 61 Aliwal Street, Singapore 199937Artist
Aisha Rosli, Anna Du Toit, Casey Tan, Faris Heizer, Joel Seow, Marla Bendini, Oneal Parbo, Shen Jiaqi, Vanessa Liem, Yom Bo SungExhibition Dates
July 12 – August 8, 2025Opening Reception
Saturday, 12th July 2025, 5 pm till lateContact
+65 6980 3069
singapore@cuturigallery.com
london@cuturigallery.comAbout the Artists
Aisha Rosli (b. 1997, Singapore)
Singaporean artist Aisha Rosli graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) with a Diploma in Fine Art (Western Painting) in 2018. She has had successful solo shows at Cuturi Gallery and was featured in several group exhibitions including OH! Open House in Singapore, Galerie LJ in Paris, Unit London in the UK, At The Table Group Show hosted by Christie’s, Harpers Gallery in New York, and ART SG in Singapore.
Referencing 20th century painters, Francis Bacon and Egon Schiele, as well as contemporaries such as Marlene Dumas, Rosli works within the tradition of figurative painting, driven by a mode of interrogation affixed to our bodily presence. Exploring themes of solitude, concealment, proximity, and desire, she presents figures inhabiting constructed scenes and situations that pander towards the uncanny.Anna Du Toit (b. 2001, Singapore)
Singaporean artist Anna Du Toit is a 24-year-old multidisciplinary artist based in Singapore and a Fine Art graduate from The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Her work is inspired by her surroundings, focusing on unusual details and developing them into a new perspective. Her pieces range from detailed ballpoint drawings to larger sculptures that explore themes of home and identity, ultimately offering a surreal look at her personal connection to care.Casey Tan (b. 1994, Singapore)
Casey Tan is a Singaporean painter whose works focus on visual metaphor and narrative. Drawing inspiration from everyday life, Tan reinterprets these experiences while still keeping in check with reality. Sometimes bringing drama and fantasy to the ordinary. Casey Tan graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts in 2016 from NAFA, where he was also a recipient of the Ngee Ann Kongsi Scholarship. Prior to NAFA, he studied Digital Animations at the Institute of Technical Education (2011-2012). In 2019, Casey Tan was awarded the UOB Most Promising Artist of the Year. Besides receiving commissions, his artworks are also part of private collections, and they were featured in several exhibitions at Cuturi Gallery, Paris Asia Now and ART SG.
In his recent practice, he tries to avoid operating by intuition; instead, he takes time to understand and explore different ways of interpreting a particular scenario. He strives to create works that hold narrative and experiments in different ways of using acrylic as a medium.Faris Heizer (b. 1998, Singapore)
Faris Heizer is an artist who lives and works in Singapore. Working within the tradition of figurative painting, his works are based on personal observations of contemporary society and its structural workings revolving around capitalism and gender. In particular, Heizer gives form to the behavioural and performative aspects of social relations that arise from such. His artistic inquiries often feature the working class in a range of imagined realities charged with intimacy, tension, and bewilderment.
Graduated from NAFA with a Diploma in Fine Arts in 2018, Faris Heizer held three solo shows at Cuturi Gallery and have since participated in several exhibitions including Tang Contemporary in Beijing, Galerie LJ in Paris, Christie’s, Harpers Gallery in New York, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in Schloss Görne, Asia Now in Paris, Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles and ART SG in Singapore.Joel Seow (b. 1997, Singapore)
Joel Seow is an artist and educator. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he approaches contemporary representational painting with tenderness and a reverence for the craft.
His works explore the tension between intimacy and urban isolation, and how one’s memory and state of mind interact with familiar spaces. Layered with personal symbolism and autobiographical experiences, the spaces, objects, and figures in his paintings shift between solidity and transience, directly engaging with the inevitable opacity inherent in creating deeply personal images. His works have been featured in exhibitions in both Singapore and the USA. Joel was also a 2022 grantee of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and a finalist of the AXA Art Prize 2022 at the New York Academy of Art.Marla Bendini (b. 1986, Singapore)
Marla Bendini is a BFA Interactive Media graduate of the School of Art, Design & Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University (2013), where she focused on interactive video installations, film and performance. She started painting and making installations during her junior college education (2004).
Marla Bendini is also a cross-disciplinary artist and trans woman working in painting, text, sound and performance to articulate the infinitely faceted transgender experience on her own terms. Her current painting practice uses the female gaze through a combination of writing, drawing, painting, collage, and printmaking to create layered ‘documentations’ of a unique woman’s experience.
To date, Marla Bendini has performed and exhibited in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Macau, Sweden,Spain and the United States of America.Oneal Parbo (b. 1997, Singapore)
Oneal Parbo incorporates either automatic painting or drawing that progressively develops into biomorphic shapes. Thereupon, he adopts elements of composition such as repetition and symmetry. This interplay between the lack of conscious effort from automatism and control through composing or altering the object is how these forms emerge. The contours depicted are non-representational, yet evoke a feeling of seclusion, paired with an unearthly quality in the subject matter. Fundamentally, this approach of refraining himself in providing any form of narrative allows him to concentrate on the compositional aspects of his work.
Oneal Parbo spent his formative childhood growing up in Singapore. He graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 2018 and has since taken part in several shows including solo presentations Slow Burn and Voyages at Cuturi Gallery in 2022 and 2021, respectively.Shen Jiaqi (b. 1989, Singapore)
Shen Jiaqi’s practice delves into the historical and visual tapestry of the city, documenting the varied lives and experiences within the urban landscape. Her works serve as a visual chronicle, layering the stoic presence of architecture and industrial machinery with the adaptive nature of urban vegetation, and the fleeting essence of human presence. Through a nuanced exploration of themes, Shen’s works navigate the complex terrain of individual identity amidst the perpetual flux of our environment.
Shen obtained her MFA from LASALLE College of the Arts (with Goldsmiths, London) in 2022. She previously studied painting at NAFA (2010) and Visual Art & Drama Education at NIE (2015). Her work has featured in public showcases including Our Heartlands by Plural Art Magazine, Past.Future.Present. by National Gallery Singapore, NAC’s Streets of Hope, and Towards Sojourn – a McLaren GT project with Louis Vuitton. Shen Jiaqi received a Highly Commended award in the 2021 UOB Painting of the Year, Emerging Artist category and the Winston Oh Travel Award in 2022. Shen held her third solo show with Cuturi Gallery in 2024. In 2025, she exhibited at S.E.A. Focus and ART SG.Vanessa Liem (b. 2002, Singapore)
Vanessa Liem graduated under the International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme (IBCP) in Visual Arts at School of the Arts, Singapore (SOTA) in 2020.
Liem delves into the themes of voyeurism and power dynamics inherent in the relationship between the viewer and painting. Through figuration, she explores performativity in the depiction of self, and the reclaiming of our agency through the choreography of her figures.
Vanessa Liem has participated and curated several SOTA art exhibitions. For her work, she won Gold for the 2019 UOB Painting of the Year, Emerging Category. In 2025, Vanessa Liem received her Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Arts in Painting at the University of the Arts, London.Yom Bo Sung (b. 1996, Singapore)
Born in Daejeon, South Korea, Singaporean artist Yom Bo Sung taps into his own transnational experiences to explore the idiosyncratic nature of social, political and cultural identities. Reappropriating cultural symbols and imageries for his miniature sculptures, large-scale installations and free-standing sculptures, his wryly humorous practice picks up on the subtleties underlying the wide range of religions, languages and customs in the world.Yom received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Slade School of Fine Art in London, UK in 2020. He was awarded the Harper’s BAZAAR Art Prize Singapore in 2016, for his work ‘Gunny Stack’. He was also the youngest artist to be selected for the two iterations of the 4482 [SASAPARI] exhibition in London (2018, 2019). Yom Bo Sung held his solo show, Our Foreign Home, at Cuturi Gallery recently, and he continues to exhibit both locally and internationally.
About the Gallery
Founded in 2019, Cuturi Gallery is a contemporary art gallery based in Singapore with a strong focus on emerging Singaporean talents, many of whom form the core of the gallery’s roster. While rooted in its local context, Cuturi Gallery also actively collaborates with emerging and established artists across borders, extending its vision beyond Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific, fostering meaningful exchanges that bridge cultural perspectives between the East and the West. This ongoing dialogue is central to the gallery’s mission.
In 2020, the gallery launched an in-house residency programme, offering both local and international artists the opportunity to develop new work in Singapore, culminating in a solo presentation. In 2022, Cuturi Gallery began a programme of satellite exhibitions in London, with plans to establish a permanent international outpost by the end of 2025. Cuturi Gallery is located in a conserved heritage shophouse in Kampong Glam, one of Singapore’s most vibrant cultural precincts and home to a growing ecosystem of independent art spaces and museums.
Nestled in a beautiful conservation shophouse, Cuturi Gallery stands in Singapore’s vibrant arts and cultural precinct of Kampong Glam, home to a myriad of independent art spaces and museums.(Text and images courtesy of Cuturi Gallery)
