SUBJECT SHALL REMAIN ANONYMOUS

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SUBJECT SHALL REMAIN ANONYMOUS

4 April to 28 April 2012 ANG Sookoon Ahmad Zakii ANWAR Ba CAMACHO HOANG DUONG Cam Mella JAARSMA Adam LEE Vincent LEOW Maya MUOZ Donna ONG Nipan ORANNIWESNA Jeremy SHARMA and Doris DUKE
curated by Jason WEE

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Subject Shall Remain Anonymous

by Jason Wee This exhibition started with a mystery. T X X X The gallerist Tolla Sloane showed me a painting by Doris Duke, a commercial portraitist who worked in Malaya and died in Singapore in 1967, who was also Tollas grandmother. T . The portrait Girl in Pink was finished in 1955 for an exhibition for the Women Artists of Malaya group, which included Georgette Chen among others. The Malay girl in the painting was not named in any of the exhibition documents in Tollas possession, and though we suspected that some of the other artists in that exhibition may have painted the same teenage model, we could not find her likeness elsewhere, at least not in what we saw of Chens and her contemporaries paintings from those years. She remained a nameless cipher for the ambitions of others, yet I was unwilling to relinquish the sense I had from seeing her face that her anonymity could be more than a condition of an unequal relationship between artist and model, but could be an assortment of guises that retain some measure of secrecy in order to individuate the subject and provide the subject with a sense of agency. The undecipherable hiddenness that anonymity provides can also mark any newly emerging identities as differentiated and distinctly real. The asymmetries of power that will render a person or subject anonymous are not unique to the artist studio, especially not in a city like ours. It is a city where the bureaucratese audience development and public education take on ambivalent shades, where the audience and the public are considered amiably compliant recipients of precast agendas. The aim of education and development is to ensure a wider distribution of ready information, and to educate the public on the conditions of their agreement. The audience and the public matter only in this regard; any mutual antagonism between public and public is elided, much less any contestation between the state and these publics. Distinctions between one public and another and between one individual voice and the next - are softened into the ambivalent anonymity of agreement. XXXXXX . What sets this version of anonymity apart is its sometimes violent force; anonymity as an effect of actions taken against a subject by one invested with greater authority or power. This is anonymity as something done to the subject, acts that take what is most recognizable or objectionable about the subject and diffuse or nullify those parts. W . What I am suggesting in this exhibition is a counter possibility, that when faced with this force the subject as glimpsed in the exhibition could take on that anonymity toward altogether different ends. When the anonymity maintains the trace of individuality rather than erase it, for one, or when anonymity is a sign that the subject is not completely whole or human, and therefore not quite within reach of any attempts to normalize it. Far From Normal XXX Donna Ongs drawings of fetuses are sketched from a visit to a medical museum where these preserved forms sit as examples of deformity at the early stages of life. D . Delicately outlined on paper, these figures are transformed from anatomical specimens into difficult bodies. They bear the possibility of life without life itself, an uncanny preservation of the potential to grow, to have proper names, and to identify themselves, that is at the same time a preservation of its potential for greater disfigurement. Their suspension in a nascent yet nameless stage of life draws out complex responses from us in part because this suspension catches them between the nominally and normally human. Adam Lees figures emerge from a similar zone between the not-yet- and the not-quite-human, as though various conglomerations of biomass have not only gained conscious life but have also taken humanoid form. They are less nature personified with a capital N, more hybridized swamp things, embodiments of the sometimes mythic, frequently uneasy separation between humans and their natural environments. T . That separation is always a negotiated terrain, never securely pinned in Adam Lees paintings; are these humanoids a branch of arboreal evolution, humans with the capacity for grafts of chlorophyll-rich cilia, or a version of the hipster woodsmen, all bearded and disguised in the trappings of environmental consciousness? Ang Sookoons sculptures pulls organic and inorganic material into biochemical interactions that similarly upend our recognition of growth and other living processes. Ang soaks bread loaves into saturated solutions of monoammonium phosphate, which infuses the bread and slowly hardens it. The bread takes on the appearance of petrified stone as bursts of crystalline forms appear on the surface, sometimes in jagged shrieks, sometimes in a stubbly murmur. T . Though we see growth, emergence and complexity, reworking our conventions of what these might be, these patterns of change do not confirm any recognition of organic life. The processes behind these changes operate at a molecular scale that we can justifiably call secretive; the crystals on close observation seem to belie its extension into a deeper, undecipherable core. The Undecipherable It is what is illegible in Nipan Oranniswesnas pin-pricked lyrics on paper that suggests these texts could be metonymic for the singers of their songs. Using pins, he creates bumps on the paper surface that suggest Braille, but will make little sense to Braille readers. With our eyes further away, these bumps coalesce into lines from Thai patriotic songs, yet the pinholes in the bumps continually challenge their legibility. All this on a surface that is minimally visual plain white paper with tidy rows of bumps and holes. Here is the subject conscripted to nationalism, barely detectable when our eyes pull further from the crowd, the single voice nearly undecipherable as the en-masse song floats above. Working in a grid rather than lines, Bea Camachos figures are parallel anonymous activators of language, their movements creating glyph-like shapes that, in transmission, resemble a spatial semaphore with significant variability. The individuals move to unknown choreography that is provided out-of-sight and yet - this is the works most intriguing point - not quite offscreen. The video is mirrored in such a way that suggests that the choreographer or set of instructions might be dead center, in the middle of the screen, both hidden by and alluded to by the doubling. The agent of change, though invisible, may be right in front of us. Mirroring is crucial to how we identify ourselves to ourselves, to how we realize our composition as well as our self-division; how we are a sum of parts, with different co-existing potentials to be one thing one moment, another the next. Snapshots, revelatory because they can seem so offhanded and casual, can show us that difference within the shortest flashes of time. The individual, Maya Muozs paintings suggest, appears as we shift between two quick slices of time. The figure is effaced, yet we can distinguish individuality by what holds steady between the two frames - from the choice of jeans, the confident but relaxed naked torso, the long straggly hair as well as what has changed. Yet the individuality we detect, the grasp of our own power to choose and act, may not be fully in our self-possession. Our agency may be more fragile and de-centered than we care to admit, our choices evidence of the influence of others. Hoang Duong Cams photograph is a kind of self-portrait, a image of himself as a palimpsest of his influences, a blend of images of Lenin, so prominent in Vietnamese socialist discourses, and his own. Arguably what we see in this accreted portrait is some ways more closely resembles Cam than a straight shot of his face before a camera. The individual is a shapeshifting assembly of disjunctive parts. The eyes are both his and not his. We may not, or ever have been, ourselves. X X X

Subject Shall Remain Anonymous, essay by Jason WEE The Remains of Anonymity, essay by Adele TAN Doris DUKE ANG Sookoon Ahmad Zakii ANWAR Ba CAMACHO HOANG DUONG Cam Mella JAARSMA Adam LEE Vincent LEOW Maya MUOZ Donna ONG Nipan ORANNIWESNA Jeremy SHARMA

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4-5 6-7 8-9 10 - 11 12 - 13 14 - 15 16 - 17 18 - 19 20 - 21 22 - 23 24 - 25 26 - 27 28 - 29

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The Remains of Anonymity

by Adele Tan Protected Autonomy If so, the heroes we celebrate as extraordinary are particularly troubled by these challenges. Instead of unique individuals who make exceptional demands of themselves, they become small if crucial plot elements of existing narratives that organizes and necessitates their actions. I want to call attention to this thread of trouble masculinity in Jeremy Sharmas paintings from his underappreciated Protection exhibition. T . They are racecar drivers, astronauts, boxers, and emergency workers, their uniforms and appearances both a sign of how their roles and actions are embedded in familiar masculine narratives, yet we consider the individuals inhabiting those roles as singularly capable of the exceptional. In these roles, these individuals are anonymous, yet their roles also mark them out as heroes. These masculinities are not exclusively the domain of men, and the converse is just as true. In an influential body of work that spans decades, Mella Jaarsmas installations and paintings have shown how veiling and other forms of partial or full body covering, so often taken as typically feminine and Islamic, are as much as part of masculine appearances as they have been feminine ones. These coverings so often accepted as costumed erasures of individuality are in her work invested with animistic force, wit, kineticism and sly critique. The same masculinity that endows these costumes as symbolic or real protection is also available to other genders. They grant their bearers safety, social recognition and autonomy, whether the bearers are male, female or otherwise. X . The lean musculature of Ahmad Zakii Anwars latest model suggests the very opposite of costumed anonymity, yet it shares the same potential for androgynous slippages. See where the figures legs are delicately crossed, the palms softly opened, its head tilted to show the turn of the neck. We sometimes witness this slippage in the depictions of religious figures, where the sense of mystery provided by androgyny also consecrates that figure with saintly singularity. Crucially, the face and the body turn away from the viewer, supplying a suggestive ambiguity to the figures sex. B X . But we do not read shyness or fear in the dark envelope of Zakiis drawing; instead, anonymity provides the screen for a self that wears its ambiguity in repose. Vincent Leows paintings return us to the idea of anonymity as an act done to a subject, in this case a dark and near-total effacement that leaves only the hands untouched. Brought to its logical end, this scrubbing away of skin and flesh takes us literally to the bone; we arrive at a ridiculous yet terrifying flayed skeleton. Yet the movements of the effacing brush, rather than aggressively slashing or linear, oddly mark out facial contours and the outlines of the figures dress. We see hairlines, the shape of eyes and lips. The dark strokes remarkably adhere to the posture and of the figure. It is as though the erasure, while nullifying crucial features and form as its necessary act, also becomes a way of encoding the various concealments necessary to protect the subject from those relentless watching it. X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Most people will have few misgivings about remaining anonymous if they were the ones actively making the decision to remain unnamed. The same generosity seldom extends the other way around. We become discomfited by persons who refuse to identify themselves. Their presence is palpable but they refuse to allow you, the other in the encounter, to have any hold on them. That is, until the anonymity is similarly shared, where all persons in the same locus of communication and action uphold anonymity as a right and privilege, becoming itself the bearer of identity. Though I never visited, I can safely presume that Alcoholics Anonymous is a gathering of strangers who come together to discuss their own afflictions, bonding over that which consumes them, a gathering where the guaranteed anonymity levels all status distinctions and the addiction becomes the mark of personality. X . Anonymity that alleviates our stigmas makes us all a little braver, a proverbial shot in the arm when we need to confront our inner demons, whilst maintaining a certain distance as though saying this is not really me. After all, we have been counselled to hate not the sinner but the sin. As one moves between recovery and relapse, one also oscillates between identity and anonymity; as long as one remains addicted (to sex, gambling, drugs, alcohol or even OCDs), one seems condemned to never be known by any other traits, defined only by a compulsive drive. One remains an element that is unidentifiable within a set of societal norms. One becomes a mere shadow of oneself, blacked or blanked out of existence, consoled by the indispensable spliff and the certitude of ones flesh and bones. It appears that anonymity can only be a temporary insalubrious state of existence and one can never truly derive pleasure from being anonymous. We would rather apply symbolic pseudonyms than be in a permanent position of anonymia, being without a name. Words and actions can remain anonymous but humans often cannot - can you love the truly anonymous? Imagine being frequently invited to parties but always ending up being ignored because you have no name, just a nobody. We will soon invent something to avoid this intolerable state, to form meaningful partnerships without a constant need to justify to oneself and to the other person; that is, without the question who is this person at all?. The same distress is conveyed by persons who have lost the ability to recognize faces due to cerebral impairment or dementia, and also by the loved ones who become anonymous subjects orbiting in that persons lifeworld. O . Our technologised daily life can be anonymizing and alienating; the constant influx of persons and stimuli are going to slip through our consciousness empirically there but emotionally unregistered. Yet we judge these same anonymous persons by the attributes we receive from the mass media, whether these attributes are ideal or reprehensible. We act as if we know these far-off celebrities or criminals intimately, and therefore persons who conform in some particular way to these attributes will immediately be touched or tarred. Surely this is how Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh manage to only see Osama bin Laden and Ahmadinejad as the only avatars of Islam. Yet so can the astronaut or the F1 driver, whose occupations are also ideological and whose followers just as fanatical. X X X X Contemporary modes of information dissemination assume a high degree of default anonymity, and we habitually fill in the blanks. The police are consumed in a case until the victims and perpetrators have their faces and bodies composited and identified, the same way that audiences are glued to police dramas where officers forensically piece together bits of the unknown dead. We are seldom however, as interested in the real-life anony-mous victims of tragic circumstances, especially those of massacres and natural or man-made disasters, whose numbers overwhelm our comprehension. The lucky ones get remembered en-masse in a commemorative monument such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. X X X The status and deployment of anonymity becomes much more fraught In the realm of civil society and politics. On one hand, we encourage greater citizenry participation in society to stem the tide of anomie, to break the isolated pockets of dogma, yet this same participation is precipitated by the exponential growth of internet communities, many of which are filled with anonymous readers and commentators. For online participants from authoritarian countries, the freedom afforded by internet anonymity can be a reprieve from reprisal; they will be heard and read but less easily tracked. But it means one peruses the comments of political blogs with difficulty; the multitude of anonymous posters; the anonymous referencing the anonymous; and the trolls who firebomb and fans the flames of discontent. Traditional media tend to abjure anonymous writers, requiring you to divulge your identity when publishing your writing. As GK Chesterton once put it in his essay Anonymity and Other Counsels: W X X Writing anonymously ought to be the exception; writing a signed article ought to be the rule. And anonymity ought to be not only an exception, but an accidental exception; a man ought always to be ready to say what anonymous article he had written. The journa-listic habit of counting it something sacred to keep secret the origin of an article is simply part of the conspiracy which seeks to put us who are journalists in the position of a much worse sort of Jesuits or Freemasons.O X X X Ones thoughts should be free but once expressed they must also be reliable, authentic and verifiable, or so goes the usual spiel of the local press. This is to prevent the sort of campaign of misinformation that so often happens in the tabloid papers. Yet in daily reportage, you would find at least a few that began the sentence with Eyewitnesses say but with none naming who these eyewitnesses are. But this has not diminished our appetite for anonymity. A new creed has ascended. A name (or to name) is taken to be secondary and retrograde. A generation of pseudonyms, signs and symbols taking the place of proper names, a marked difference from the traditional medias stance of names being changed to protect the innocent. They are by no means innocent nor wholly anonymous. like the graffiti artists who create their own tags, the internet and civil society revolutionaries will have some made-up IDs at their disposal but are less bothered by their consistency or any demand to have a name. Anonymity at its most political is that of the anti-name, the refusal to be pinned down by some given reference or coordinates because they are deemed to be irrelevant to the content of the message. Personalities rise up but do not dominate the scene because the fight is no longer vested in the egos. In the visual arts, most still prefer a traceable signature, the imprint of a unique personality that might be truly genius. At times the scene will champion the underdog, the outsider art of prisoners who lacked the ability to name themselves and must be shielded by a serial number but have nonetheless demonstrated their raw and rare vision, unadulterated by the jaded fancies of the art market. And like the confessions of the alcoholics at the AA meetings, the exhibition of artworks by the unnamed inmates function as a social reparative, making art a form of restorative justice, allowing both the criminal and the citizen to meet at another interstice where relational value and affect can be re-found. And so when I asked earlier whether one can love the truly anonymous, its most apposite reply must surely come from the Oscar Wildes erstwhile younger companion Lord Alfred Douglas, who professes in his poem Two Loves of the love that dare not speak its name. Love here is aligned with the anti-name and the subject and the action of love finds most traction in the space of art. X X X X X

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Doris DUKE

(1910-1967) DXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Doris Duke was a London based commercial artist during the 1930s. When war broke out in September 1939, she joined the Women's Auxilliary Air Force. Whilst in the WAAF in London, Duke was asked to work as a cartographical artist. During the war, Duke met Eric Kennington (1888 1960), the official British war artist. He inspired her to take up portrait painting. BXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX. Between 1954 and 1967 she was based in Malaysia and Singapore. Her first commission in Malaysia was from the Brigade of Ghurkas and in the particular the Gurkha Royal Signals, whose Commanding Officer wished to have portraits representing the various Gurkha tribes. Her next commission was to paint the Sultan of Negri Sembilan, who later became the first Supreme Ruler / King of Malaya H.H Tuanku Abdul Rahman Ibni al-Marhum Tuanku Muhammed, K.C.M.G. For this portrait, she travelled to the Sultan's residence in Seremban. The portrait was completed and hung in the Secretariat at Seremban. IXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. In 1955, Duke took part in the Malaya Federation Arts Exhibition alongside artists such as Chen Wen Hsi. Her paintings included Gurkha Major Parsuram Gurung MBE, Girl in Pink, Tanah Merah and Woman of Limbun Jat. LXXXXXXXX Later in 1955, the first exhibition of works by Women Artists of Malaya was held. The selection committee included Georgette Chen. Dukes works Girl in Pink and Market Kuala Lumper were featured in the exhibition. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXX

Doris DUKE Girl in pink, oil on canvas, 50 x 42cm, 1955

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ANG Sookoon

(b.1977, Singapore. Lives and works in Singapore) TX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X X X XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX The sculptures featured in this exhibition create an oxymoronic object, part soft bread and part prickly crystals; mirroring the ups and downs of romantic love. The series is titled Love is Like a Chunk of Gold. For something so much discussed, the concept of love completely eludes us The Singapore Show: Future Proof: Singapore Art Museum, 2012-01-13. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X X XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX. Ang Sookoon graduated RMIT, Australia and the School of Visual Arts, New York (BFA, 2002) and is winner of a number of prestigious awards and residences. S XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX. She has had three solo shows in Singapore and the USA and her work has featured in group exhibitions at Singapore Art Museum, ICA Singapore, National Art Studio Seoul, Osage Gallery, SouthAfrican National Gallery Cape Town, Beijing Biennale and Goliath Art Space New York. XXXXXXXX XXXX XX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXX
Sookoon ANG Your love is like a chunk of gold 2, Your love is like a chunk of gold 3, bread, monoammonium phosphate, dimensions variable, 2012

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Ahmad Zakii ANWAR Reclining Figure 13 (detail), charcoal and gloss medium on paper, 69.5 x 222cm, 2012

Ahmad Zakii ANWAR

(b.1955, Malaysia. Lives and works in Johor Bahru) X X X . Zakii's new charcoal work continues his fascination with the medium. This new commission takes a darker turn, the body seemingly shrouded by foreboding."On charcoal drawings - No brushes, turpentine, gel or the endless paraphernalia that goes with painting. It is just the charcoal, your fingers and the paper. The strength of the medium lies in the intense relationship between black and white and the endless gradations of greys in between the absence of colour strips away everything illusory, revealing the form in its most basic and essential nature. But the simplicity is deceptive. It is an intensely honest medium and if you are not good enough, there is nowhere to hide... as told to Lindy Poh in Ahmad Zakii Anwar published by Standard Chartered Bank 2007. X X X X X Ahmad Zakii Anwar is a graduate of the School of Art and Design, MARA Institute of Technology Malaysia. He began his career as a graphic artist, producing some of the leading advertising graphics of his time before turning to fine art practice. H . His work has been exhibited widely in Southeast Asia, the US, China and Europe at Valentine Willie Fine Art, Richard Koh Fine Art, Andrew Shire Gallery, Plum Blossoms and Barbara Greene Fine Art among many others. He has taken part in residencies at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute and most recently, in Mexico. AX X

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Bea CAMACHO
(b.1983, Manila, Philippines) C X X This new work is an architecture dependent on the relationship between the known and the unknown. There is an invisible half; an unseen component occurring at the same time as the component seen in this video. The perceived totality is an active fiction that is reliant on the physical connection between the part revealed and the part concealed. It explores the imaginary through abstraction and reconstitution, presenting a condition between the familiar and the unfamiliar; it is a structure in flux. X X . Camacho is a visual artist who works with installation, video and performance to explore ideas of distance, absence, memory and loss, often in relation to family and home. C . Camacho received her BA in visual and environmental studies from Harvard University where she was awarded the Albert Alcalay Prize for outstanding work in studio art and the David McCord Prize for achievement in the arts. H . Her work has been shown in several institutions, including the National Museum of the Philippines, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Cultural Centre of the Philippines, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Kyoto ArtCentre, Triennale di Milano Design Museum and the Tate Modern. X X X X X X X X X X
Bea CAMACHO Contingent Architecture I, single-channel video, 2:25 minute loop, 2012

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HOANG DUONG Cam

(b.1974, Vietnam. Lives and works Ho Chi Minh City) X Voloda 1886-2011 is a collage photograph, binding one of my self-portraits with one of V.I. Lenin who had a strong influence on world history as well as the history of Vietnam. The process of making the photograph is actually the process of collage fragments, collected when taking an auto-portrait using macro lens and close-up focus to reconstruct a portrait loosely based on the portraits of people who made an effect on my personal history. The people I have chosen are carefully considered, as is the time at which the photograph was taken a time when they were still young and had not started their careers. Conversely, because most of the portraits I found of historical figures were worn out, the process of binding fragments of my personal history with theirs gradually becomes the restoration process of a broader history. As told to Tolla Sloane, 2012. X X Hoang Duong graduated as a painter from Hanoi Fine Arts University in 1996, he is one of the most active contemporary artists in Vietnam today. H . His conceptual works span a range of mediums: painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, performance, video and digital photography. His works are deeply concerned with the human condition, the relations that might existed between ones inner and outer worlds. His work has been exhibited at the Aichi Triennale Japan, ifa-Galerie Berlin, ifa-Galerie Stuttgart, Jakarta Biennale, Coreana Museum of Art Seoul, Singapore Art Museum , Zendai Museum of Modern Art Shanghai, Guangdong Museum of Art Guangshou, Singapore Biennale and Museum of Contemporary Art Karlsruhe, Germany. " X X X
HOANG DUONG Cam Volodya 1886-2011, digital print edition of 5 + 2AP, 110 x 120cm, 2012

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Mella JAARSMA

(b. 1960, Netherlands. Lives and works in Yogyakarta since 1984) J X X X X X . Through my work, I question origins, and actually deconstruct identities by producing renewable identities and seeing identity as a transient invention. Clothing, as a second skin, has become a major theme. Clothing can be seen as an instrument to communicate to the surrounding world. It is a vehicle for all sorts of messages. On the other hand, our skin and other layers protects us from invaders - as told to Jason Wee, 2012. X X X X X X X . Jaarsma grew up in the Netherlands and studied visual art at Minerva Academy, Groningen. Following that she graduated from the Art Institute of Jakarta and has been based in Yogjakarta since 1984. H . Her work has been presented widely in exhibitions in Indonesia and beyond including the Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, Gwangju Biennale, Yokohama Triennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei and Katonah Museum New York. She is also co-founder of one of Indonesias most influential spaces, Cemeti Art House. " X X X X X
Mella JAARSMA Talisman, chainmail, dimensions variable, 2009 (photography by Mie Cornoedus)

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Adam LEE

(b.1979, Melbourne. Lives and works in Victoria) X X X X X X X X . For me, the work is really about this relationship or contrast between our resilience and our frailty. I think those two characteristics of humanity have been magnified in the last decade or so. As told to Dan Rule in Artist Profile, Australia. X X X X X X X X X X X X Lee graduated with a BFA and MFA from the Royal Melbourne Institute in 2006. He has since had a number of solo shows in Australia and won the 2011 RBS Emerging Artist award. His works were recently featured at Art Stage Singapore. " X X X X X X X X X
Adam Lee Wilderbeast , oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 66 x 46cm, 2011

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Vincent LEOW

(b.1961, Singapore. Lives and works in Singapore) X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Vincent Leow is a pivotal figure in the alternative art scene in Singapore. His practice parallels the development of contemporary art in Singapore. Leow is the founder of Plastique Kinetic Worms (PKW), a leading alternative artist-run space in Singapore. L . Leows solo shows include Singapore Art Museum, Jendala Gallery@Esplanade, Tadu Art Space Bangkok, Xin Beijin Gallery, Lip Gallery Yogjakarta and group shows at Seoul Museum of Art, 52nd Venice Biennale Singapore Pavillion, GuiYang Biennale and Gwanju Biennale. X X X X X X X X X
Vincent LEOW White Portrait, oil on canvas, 100 x 80cm, 2009

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Maya MUOZ

(b.1972, Philippines. Lives and works in the Philipines) X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X . Muoz graduated from the San Jose University, Silicon Valley, California, USA, majoring in painting and three-dimensional space design. S . She has exhibited widely in the Philippines, participating in group shows and solo exhibitions around Manila. T X X X X X X X X X X X
Maya MUNOZ Afternoon I, oil on canvas, 153 x 122.5 cm, 2011

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Donna ONG

(b.1978, Singapore. Lives and works in Singapore) X The series of works in this exhibition, Suspending Twilight, were drawn at the Medical School Museum in Singapore. While the foetuses depicted are anonymous, her connection with them is deeply personal. This is the first time the works have been shown in Singapore. X X . Donna Ong is an installation artist, best known for her ambitious narrative environments made from furniture, found objects and original artwork. Her works have been exhibited both locally and internationally in shows such as the 2nd Moscow Biennale and the inaugural Singapore Biennale 2007. Since her graduation from Goldsmiths College, London and University College with a degree in Fine Art as well as in Architecture, she has received much positive critical review for her installations. Her first solo show titled Palace of Dreams was held at The Arts House, formerly known as the Old Parliament. She has won several awards and prizes, including the Singapore Undergraduate Scholarship from UCL, the Shell-NAC scholarship from the Singapore Arts Council and Shell and the Sefton Open Competition in Two-Dimensional Art (2004), UK. H Her recent activities include an exhibition in Beijing for the Singapore Season in China, a residency by Arts Initiative Tokyo with an accompanying exhibition at Scai x Scai gallery, Tokyo, and was recently chosen as one of the artists in the Venice Architectural Exhibition (2008) under the Singapore Pavilion. In 2009, she was recognised for her artistic achievements and received the Young Artist Award from the Singapore government and that same year, was awarded the Peoples Choice award for the Presidents Young Talent Exhibition and Competition. X
Donna ONG Suspending Twilight I-IV, ink on paper, 20 x 30cm framed each, 2006

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Nipan ORANNIWESNA

(b.1962, Thailand. Lives and works in Bangkok) O X X . Three new works have been created for this exhibition. The works are an extension of Oranniwesnas work relating to national identity in a globalised world. T . They use a technique seen in his recent solo exhibitions where he pierces small holes in paper or wood to create Braille-like versions of poems and songs. The work is based on an ancient Thai prophecy verse "Pleng-yow Prayakorrn Krungsri Ayudthaya (the verse prophesying the future of Krung Sri Ayutthaya)" and is about the king's dreams and predictions related to sixteen bad omens. There are various suspicions concerning the verse, one of these is that the verse was written in Ayutthaya period of Siam before this ancient capital city collapsed but none ever knew who was the author... X Oranniwesna graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design from Silpakorn University, Bangkok and received his MFA and Doctoral degree from Tokyo National University of Fine Art & Music. I In addition to the exhibition Globalization - Please Slow Down at the Thai Pavilion, 52nd Venice Biennale (2007), he has participated in exhibitions at the Bangkok University Gallery, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Busan Biennale, Soka Art Centre Taipei, Eslite Gallery Taipei and Osage Gallery Hong Kong. H . He lives in Bangkok where he is Head of Visual Art Department, School of Fine & Applied Art, Bangkok University. T X X X
Nipan ORANNIWESNA Testimony of Forgetting (detail), hand pierced paper, 210 x100 cm (3 sheets : each 70x100 cm), 2011-2012

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Jeremy SHARMA

(b.1977, Singapore. Lives and works in Singapore) X X X X X X X . Astronaut and Racing Driver are from a series An Anthology of Faces created in 2008. A face conveys deep emotions and establishes a persons identity. Often one look at the face is enough to form an opinion of a personality type; friendly, confrontational or quite simply indifferent as told to Deepika Shetty in the Straits Times 12 June 2008. X X X X X X X X X X X X X . Sharma studied at the LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts and graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) with a BA in Fine Art in 2003 and a MA in Fine Art in 2006. A X X X X X X X
Jeremy Sharma F1 Racer, oil and acrylic on canvas, 183 x 122 cm, 2008

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Jason Wee
is an artist and a writer. He is the author of the nonfiction chapbook My Suit, and coauthor with Sean Tobin of the divisive play Tongues, both published by Math Paper Press. Tongues was a commission by The Necessary Stage and premiered at the 2012 Singapore Fringe Festival. He exhibits with Valentine Willie Fine Art, Give Art and Chan Hampe Galleries. He also runs Grey Projects, an arts platform space and residency.

We are a young, yet visionary gallery concept. We believe that contemporary art can and should be accessible to all, without losing its conceptual strength. Give Art Space is an extension of our web-based gallery, GiveArt.net (b.2010). GiveArt.nets mission is to provide alternative ways to collect critically acclaimed contemporary art through a unique online gift registry allowing collectors to crowd-source for funds to build a contemporary art collection. Give Art Space launches on 4 April 2012 with a group exhibition featuring 11 exciting Southeast Asian contemporary artists at Artspace@Helutrans, Singapore. Give Art Space will focus on nurturing our growing family of gallery artists and curating exhibitions at our space and in collaboration with other institutions and galleries. Our gallery artists and exhibited artists are based in Southeast Asia and the UK. This enables us to provide interesting collaborations, dialogues and exchanges between artists, curators, academics and

writers based in Southeast Asia and the UK. Our mission is to bring Southeast Asian contemporary artists to a global audience and to inspire collectors to discover artists working in this rapidly changing region. Artists have a unique ability to capture these changes in their work, giving us a moment to reflect on the shape-shifting around us. We're passionate about art and believe that art is a fundamental part of our society. Living with art and engaging with artists should be accessible to everyone. By collecting, engaging with and supporting contemporary artists we believe collectors new and old are making a good investment; in the artist, in the open exchange of ideas and in themselves. We will continue to innovate to create inspiring exhibitions and open forums for all whilst nurturing a group of exciting emerging artists. www.giveartspace.net www.giveart.net

Adele Tan
teaches and writes on art and art history, in particular contemporary art and performance in China and Singapore. She holds a PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London) and was a recent Global Art and the Museums fellow at ZKM, Karlsruhe. For several years she was also Assistant Editor of the British journal Third Text.

Graphic design by: Sandrine Llouquet Printed by: AlsOdoMinie Cover image: 2009-12. Vincent Leow. Portrait and Hand (detail), oil on canvas [2009]

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With the kind support of

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