Alice Cheong

Art? Somehow art has always fascinated me. Today, I am taking a peep into the local art exhibits in the company of my sister-in-law. I am really fortunate to have her by my side for this tour, as she has been away in the States for the past 4 years and is currently being nurtured in art under the tutorage of a number of great art professors. I am really happily to have her by my side and enjoyed her company immensely.

We met at the Dobby Ghaut MRT station. Being early and without having breakfast, both of us decided to grab a quick bite. So, we popped by Cathay, and hoped to grab a good meal and took a look at a gallery there. Alas, the gallery wasn’t open on Sun morning, and we had a quick glance from the outside. Next, Indulge restaurant! The good food that does not burnt a hole in my pocket. Unfortunately, we are too early and the kitchen has not open. So, we had Kaykun breakfast set instead.

Next station. School of The Art. Ops. I forgot that it is still under construction. Ops ops ops. Next station. Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). There is an exhibition, but, ops, it is closed on sun. We peeped through the glass walls, and my sister-in-law kindly took the post of commenter, and announced that the paintings have a china-like style. Seems like the exhibit artists had their training in china. Isn’t that interesting that training style can be decripted? Moreover, I realised for the first time that NAFA has 3 buildings and is called campus 1/2/3. Between campus 1 and campus 2, there is a beautiful palm tree. The branches stretch out in such an artistic manner that we paused for a minute and enjoy it.

Next station. Stamford Arts Center. Ops. There is no exhibits in the center. This center conducts classes related to art. Next station. YMS Arts Center. Ops. There are many people, but it seems like a function is to be held and not an exhibit. But, the wall and ceiling is really nicely done up artistically with elegant craving-style designs.

Next station. Singapore Art Museum. That is a good one. There is 5 exhibits ongoing today, occupying all 3 levels of the museum. There is the Seal exhibit, which is really fantastic. Some of the seal’s chinese wordings were so boldly craved in an artistic manner, that it can be read both as words and shapes. It is really amazing that the artist produced so many seals and that he only had 5 years of formal education.

The Big Picture exhibit spanned 3 levels of the side wing. It is a pity that the artistic paintings were not boldly “pushed” as commented by my private personal commenter. The asian artistic paintings are still held back in their expression, perhaps for fear that the mass cannot recognise the theme. It is so fun to see my sister-in-law inspecting the canvas used. “This canvas is not stretched properly.” What does that means? I learnt that canvas needs to be stretch properly during the mounting to the board, and that this is a tiring and skilled job that many artist cannot get it perfect. “This artist is rich”. Oh. This artist is using good quality canvas. And… A good quality linen canvas cost $100!!!, as oppose, a cheap cotton canvas cost $7! And yes, “You see the yellow and red paint being used?” Yellow paint costs 4-5 times the price of blue paint. And red paint is also more expensive than blue paint. “So, you know why my painting is always blue”. The cost of material for canvas painting is high.

The Re-Woven exhibit. This is a solo exhibit by Benny Ong. Even though it is suppose to be a part of Celebrate ASEAN, a National Heritage Board programme series, it irks of exploitation. Though Benny Ong is a renowned international fashion designer, and not an artist, in this exhibit, he merely provided the design, and these designs were woven by Lao’s weaver, who’s names never appear in the exhibit. How can you have a solo exhibit, with your name claiming all the credits, while all the hard work of weaving the entire art piece is done by others?

Next station. The Sub Station. There is a solo exhibits of photography. 1/3 of the works are really good and it is really a pleasure to know that the pieces are selling very well. Next station. MICA building. There is really a lot of galleries within the ground level. One of the poster in the notice board that caught my attention is as follows. I like it.

I have a religion.
My religion is kindness.
By Dalai Lama.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 2:52 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.