• Installation view of Ian Tee, KILL YOUR DARLINGS
  • Installation view of Ian Tee, KILL YOUR DARLINGS
  • Installation view of Ian Tee, KILL YOUR DARLINGS
  • Ian Tee, HISTORY KEEPS ME AWAKE AT NIGHT, 2020-21, acrylic, target papers, reflective tape, book cover and collage on destroyed aluminium composite panel, 200 x 300 (diptych)
  • Ian Tee, 完全感覚 DREAMER, 2020, Acrylic, target papers, comic strips, bandana, reflective tape and collage on destroyed aluminium composite panel, 120 x 90 cm
  • Ian Tee, FOLK DEVILS, 2020, acrylic, target papers, comic strips, praying card and collage and destroyed aluminium composite panel, 120 x 90 cm
  • Ian Tee, X, 2020, acrylic, target papers, comic strips, reflective tape and collage on destroyed aluminium composite panels, 200 x 150 cm
  • Ian Tee, VISIBILITY IS A TRAP, 2020, acrylic, target papers, comic strips, reflective tape and collage on destroyed aluminium composite panel, 200 x 150 cm
  • Ian Tee, OPEN FIRE, 2020, acrylic, target papers, comic strips and collage on destroyed aluminium composite panel, 200 x 150 cm
  • Ian Tee, REMEMBER THE URGE, 2020, acrylic, target papers, comic strips and collage on destroyed aluminium composite panel, 120 x 90 cm
  • Ian Tee, FIRE BLANKET 09, 2020, fibre-glass fire blanket, bleach, old clothes, unwanted textile, reflective strips and safety straps, 123 x 123 cm
EXHIBITION

Ian Tee

KILL YOUR DARLINGS

16 Jan - 31 Jan 2021

Gillman Barracks,
5 Lock Road, #01-06

Yavuz Gallery Singapore is proud to present Singaporean-artist Ian Tee in KILL YOUR DARLINGS. Opening in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2021 and SEA Focus, the exhibition consists of new paintings and installation works.

The title of the exhibition, KILL YOUR DARLINGS,  is an expression referring to the critical moment in editing a piece of writing, when the author must remove unnecessary storylines or characters for the sake of the overall plot. It speaks to the self-indulgent, sentimental and peripheral elements that are written out – the things that need to die for the narrative to go on, whether they are the people who do not fit in, personal ambitions and dreams or the luxuries we cannot afford.

Tee’s suite of new ‘Target paintings’ explores its implication on the individual and social body. Whether its adolescent feelings of rejection or “deviant” tendencies that are singled out by those in power, the works reference moments of vulnerability in popular culture and recent history.

The exhibition title also relates to the final step in the making of these works, the gesture of taking a knife to the painting. At times, deep slashes cross out the composition; in other instances, they guide the eye towards collage fragments. American artist Rashid Johnson speaks of collage materials not as found objects, but things that are “searched for”; similarly in Tee’s works, the painterly and textual/ semantic come together as a medium for release.

Presented alongside the ‘Target paintings’ are small format ‘Fire Blankets’. Their scale is based on the standard dimensions for children-sized fibreglass blankets; and the pieces bring together old clothes, unwanted textiles and industrial safety materials sewn in a composition that recalls hard language of geometric abstraction. Yet, their soft materiality and exposed edges suggest an underlying fragility holding the patchwork together.