Tina Keng Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in the 5thArt Stage Singapore, taking place at Marina Bay Sands from January 22 to 25. Tina Keng Gallery presents an array of artists: Wang Huaiqing (b. 1944), Xiaobai Su (b. 1949), Lin Ju (b. 1959), Yao Jui-chung (b. 1969), Su Meng-Hung (b. 1971), and Peng Wei (b. 1974).
Turning away from the whimsical world he used to depict, Lin Ju captures trivial details in everyday life in the Virility Revisited(2014) and Still Life(2014) series. Bones from Lin Ju’s dinner leftovers, a fountain in his neighborhood, a corner of a garden – the artist turns these objects or scenes into small-scale paintings, reminiscing each passing moment in the context of individual memory. Beckoning the viewer to delve into a pure visual experience, Lin Ju reflects on the concept of remembrance and time. Yao Jui-chung wields his needle-point pen on Indian handmade paper in his latest series Brain Landscape II: Red Forest(2014), constructing a fiery landscape with abundant lines against a golden backdrop. The two-dimensional rendering of the landscape parallels the artist’s usual tampering with historic contexts to subvert history’s authenticity in his art practice. In his latest Mandala Practice (2014), Su Meng-Hung continues to explore aesthetic qualities in the work of Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), an Italian Jesuit missionary-turned-painter-to-the- emperors in the Qing Dynasty. The exuberant palette that once brings The Thorn Birds(2010) to life, returns in Mandala Practice (2014) to enliven the songbirds in blooming flowers. Airy, light, and fragile, the imagery envelops the viewer in a seemingly decadent atmosphere overflowing with rootlessness.
Wang Huaiqing presents two sculptural works that take shape in ostensible two-dimensionality, segueing between the object’s planarity and actual form. Düsseldorf- and Shanghai-based artist Xiaobai Su redefines the vocabulary for painting when he shies away from the usual canvas and turns to wood, linen, and clay as carriers for his paint and lacquer. Calling to mind the craftsmanship of the Ru kiln, an ancient Chinese kiln known for producing fine ceramics, Su’s work breaks the boundaries between painting and sculpture, and becomes objects that embody painterly abstraction. Peng Wei’s new work Shan-Yuan(The Stories of Destiny Painted on a Fan)reinterprets Renaissance portraiture in traditional Chinese painting methods. By placing classical European literary subjects within the confines of a traditional Chinese cultural symbol such as shan(fan), the artist cunningly elicits a unique visual experience that makes viewers wonder what portraiture really means.
TKG+presents Yuan Goang-Ming (b. 1965), Wang Yahui (b. 1973), and Charwei Tsai (b. 1980), each of their art practices dissects image-making in a contemporary context. Yuan Goang-Ming’s Reasons to be a leaf(2007) draws viewers in with its depiction of verdant bush leaves while triggering curiosity when viewers realize the leaves are without veins. The veinless leaves spark viewers’ sense of doubt in the quotidian, and imply the overarching influence of globalization on modern-day culture. Wang Yahui sprinkles humor and wit in her Leaf Holeseries (2011) through altering visual perceptions of urban surroundings, magnifying the commonplace to intriguing proportions. Charwei Tsai explores the parallels among time, materiality, and spirituality with repeated Buddhist sutra writing in her sketches, drawings, and photography, connecting dots among time and space, cosmic order, and natural physicality.