• Installation view of Closer than they appear
  • Installation view of Closer than they appear
  • Installation view of Closer than they appear
  • Patricia Perez Eustaquio, Archipelago 3, 2019, giclée, graphite, acrylic and silver leaf on canvas, 102 x 81 cm
  • Caroline Rothwell, Carbon Emission 2, 2020, edition of 8+AP, digital animation, 2'
  • Agus Suwage, Larung Ego (Sweeping Ego) #1, 2020, gouache and tobacco juice on paper, 85 x 114 cm
  • Pannaphan Yodmanee, Primordial Time, 2020, mixed media on linen, 120 x 100 cm
  • Wedhair Riyadi, Paused #2 2020, oil on canvas, 200 x 140 cm
  • Guy Maestri, LLX (The Lane), 2020, oil on linen, 200 x 242 cm, diptych
  • Alvin Ong, Road Trip, 2019, oil on canvas, 175 x 150 cm
  • Zico Albaiquni, As Far As Looking for the West, East Again, East Again... 2020, oil and acrylic on canvas, 150 x 100 cm
  • Navin Rawanchaikul, Taximan 2009 (2000), mixed media, 35 x 120 x 200 cm
  • Manit Sriwanichpoom, Press Conference 2020, diasec print, 40 x 30 cm (each), set of 9
  • Radhinal Indra, Making Sense 2020, acrylic on canvas, 105 x 157 cm
  • Nicholas Ong, Chalice (V) , 2020, LED and canvas, 122 x 96 cm
  • Ian Tee, GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS, 2019 - 20, acrylic, target papers, comic strips, trading card and collage on destroyed aluminium composite panel, 150 x 122 cm
  • Jason Wee, A Line Has No Gender Or Race 2020, watercolour, watercolour pencil, ink on fabriano paper, 80 x 50 cm, diptych
EXHIBITION

Closer than they appear

19 Sep - 18 Oct 2020

Featured artists: Zico Albaiquni, Patricia Perez Eustaquio, Radhinal Indra, Guy Maestri, Alvin Ong, Nicholas Ong, Wedhar Riyadi, Caroline Rothwell, Navin Rawanchaikul, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Agus Suwage, Ian Tee, Jason Wee, Pannaphan Yodmanee

Ten years ago, on 18 June 2010, Yavuz Gallery opened in the heart of Singapore’s museum district of Waterloo Street with its inaugural exhibition Open Frame: New landscape photography from China. Glancing into our metaphorical rear-view mirror at this decadal anniversary, 2020 provides us the opportunity to reflect on our past as we advance into the future.

Closer than they appear is a powerful two-part exhibition; the first took place in our newest location, Sydney last month, with the counterpoint in the gallery’s genesis city, Singapore.

Featuring 15 celebrated artists originating from across Asia-Pacific, Closer than they appear acts as a wormhole to connect the two galleries. Representing a diversity of generations, approaches, and viewpoints, artists embark on this spatial journey by exploring understandings of landscape, country, and location; as well as temporally – evoking life, death, and rebirth. The infinite lines of time and space meet always at the crossroads of the here and now. We pause to look back at where we’ve been – another glance into our mirror, before resuming the journey ever forward.

Works by Navin Rawanchaikul, Manit Sriwanichpoom, and Wedhar Riyadi showcase social commentaries, reflecting upon contemporary society in times of Covid-19 and the looming American elections; while Ian Tee examine themes of vulnerability and human connections through new paintings – with the former of a biographical nature and latter referencing popular culture. In the drawings Larung Ego #1  and #2, Agus Suwage probes questions about the Self and the ego; similarly, Zico Albaiquni reflects on the process of self-discovery and the necessity of historiography through two new paintings based on a Sudanese poem by K.H. Hasan Mustapa. Jason Wee investigates different elementary ways of markmaking and its abstraction process around the subject of the human body, and Alvin Ong’s works playfully combine diverse visual vocabularies, in surreal bodily configurations suspended between quotidian and intimate moments.

Pannaphan Yodmanee and Radhinal Indra explore relationships to the cosmological and the astrological through the lens of worldly religions, and conversely, Nicholas Ong explores themes of perception and dimensionality through formal experimentations of light and form.

Caroline Rothwell centres on a research-based enquiry into humankind’s interaction with the natural world, with her video work informed by carbon emissions – their cause, impact, and materiality. In a similar vein, Guy Maestri is known for his strong connection to landscape, with a large-scale plein air diptych. Lastly, Patricia Perez Eustaquio traces the notions surrounding the value and migration of objects, through mixed-media canvas works that see paint abstracted into land and sea topographical formations.