Participating Artists: Ahmad Abu Bakar, Erica Lai, Ezzam Rahman, Lester Lee, Sai Hua Kuan, Stella Chang, Stellah Lim, Susie Wong, Tang Ling Nah
Yavuz Fine Art is pleased to present in•ti•ma•cy, a group exhibition featuring new works by Singaporean artists Ahmad Abu Bakar, Erica Lai, Ezzam Rahman, Lester Lee, Sai Hua Kuan, Stella Chang, Stellah Lim, Susie Wong and Tang Ling Nah.
These artists share the investigation of the emotional and philosophical relationship between the safe-harbor of conventions and the need to express an individual identity. Using media such as painting, drawing, video, photography, sculpture or installation, the works expose their individuality while protecting their intimate relationship to the subject itself.
Ahmad Abu Bakar uses the circle as a metaphor for life in his series Journey of a point to geometry series 16. In geometry, the point serves as a symbol for unity and source and represents the centre, which is elusive controlling point of all forms. In his search for his artistic originality, Abu Bakar is actually looking for a point of balance for himself, his art and his life.
Erica Lai’s series National Flowers symbolizes the rise and fall of different countries’ political and social rules and how society is transient. Each country’s national flower represents the mortality and fatality of their fragile ruling systems.
Ezzam Rahman uses Mattel dolls to draw the audience into his world of searching and waiting. The video Someday my prince will come is a reflection of his own coping with failed love and the fear that life has passed him by.
Lester Lee questions issues in society with his paintings of dreamy figures with child-like innocence. He subtly explores the factors that influence current affairs, questioning the fundament of human existence; an ongoing process that draws him closer to his own sense of purpose.
In his series In Studio, Sai Hua Kuan develops various experimental ideas utilizing objects that are commonly seen in his own art studio. His work resists any logical reading by switching between commonality and uniqueness.
Stella Chang explores the gestures of invitation and exclusion, revealing and withholding in her triptych Invitation to the dance. The figures reach out to the viewers, inviting them to take a closer look at what they cannot or refuse to see.
Stellah Lim uses her own hair to embroider portraits of her loved ones in her series Never, inserting a physical part of herself into the artwork to create a sense of loss and lasting memory.
Susie Wong’s series of portraits Head Series 2007/22 express the ephemeral nature of corporeality. Emerging, submerging, present, absent, they appear as a result of repetitive handling of charcoal dust over paper.
The impermanent nature of charcoal in Tang Ling Nah’s series Contemplating Waterloo relates to the temporality of things occurring in transitory or in-between spaces. The abstraction of shapes and representation of real architectural spaces in her drawings relate to the tension between “slow” and “fast” spaces; “places” and “non-places; and “familiarity” and “unfamiliarity”.