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you
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the concern of artists is to very new to
general public in Singapore when people
ask me what's my job I can't explain I
find it so hard for them to greps what
exactly I'm doing you know if I do say
artists they will be like you do
paintings and then when your date it
worth a lot of money
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going to our School in Singapore has
traditionally been seen as the downward
spiral parents tend to worry about their
kids who go to our school end up you
know taking drugs and you know just
dropping out of school anyway and it's
had a reputation of being you know
basically a hive of delinquents it's
such a young nation you know we don't
have any blue chip or a list of others
from Singapore so we are at the very
fundamental of maybe when New York was
in the seventies and others where it's
just booming Simcoe has been so long
without an art market without viñales
without proper art spaces and this
suddenly came up in the past like maybe
five years and it happened such a short
period of time and before that I think
the artists were really used to just
making work that we wanted to make and
finding the means to do that
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looking at the situation in Asia there
are two places where you can really do
an international event that is Hong Kong
and Singapore it's the same so like in
the financial world here it's really
surrounded by many different cultures
and many different arts seats you have
everywhere a lot of great artists a lot
of new forms of art coming up but
everywhere there is a certain weakness
of infrastructure and we have this
wonderful island in between which has
infrastructure which has stability which
has the possibility to build up a center
a hub for Contemporary Art is doing it
with the museums and I think that is the
one the beautiful thing here how the
society is changing and what kind of
impact that will also have on an art
market we had a very good joke and that
as we showed the designs for these
pictures to a young friend in London and
he was very excited sin where you're
going to exhibit them we said in single
boys and oh oh dear me
and they said is it a museum show were
selling true we said it's a selling show
they said how much would you get for
this one I said probably about six
months
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when I show pictures of some parts of
Singapore to my friends they all like
kind of shocked because it seems so far
out to other people it seems almost
science fiction
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the very typical thinking of Singaporean
or Chinese is that you have to be of a
white collar a banker a lawyer you know
prices of rands and others are
ridiculous so it is almost an oval
Singaporean to own a studio a lot of
young artists are actually staying with
their parents so they are working from
their room you know here we are this is
some Bower we're way up north in
Singapore closer to Malaysia than we are
to any other part of Singapore I live
right over there that's I live with my
mom and dad it's their apartment we and
my two younger brothers and we share the
space I like small spaces as long as
there are enough bathrooms we're okay we
have to that's good yeah
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in a country like this which is so small
as to ours across one end to the other
and that's like the longest and we are
constantly surrounded by high-rise
buildings most of us live in their own
flats and we don't have gardens we don't
have views it's perhaps from this
situation that I create all these
internal worlds because yeah when you're
you're a child you you read all these
books of places you've never seen before
you and you can only recreate them in
the in your home in your imagination
this piece is about the games that you
play as a kid I'm looking at these games
but as an adult and in this case you
know when a kid wants to make the dolls
come alive it's cute but when adult
wants to make the dolls come alive
it becomes uncanny and it's slightly
scary as well and sinister one of my
work is in a co store his boundaries
you know if I have the requires a room
or it's a very internal piece of work or
it is seen in a cupboard it's always
bounded by something and within that
enclosure a little tiny miniature world
emerges you know and this world kind of
expands out with
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I always think about how I could bring
my practice into a different kind of
format when it comes to the painting is
very traditional so I like to fuse like
new media with traditional media and
other sorts of possibility so it's like
you have sound like you know contraption
which is new media and you have
sculptures paintings you know prints
which is traditional and for me when it
comes to this whole multi-sensory it's
about making think oh he see if as one
the subjects of the paintings are all my
friends
friends that I met when I'm overseas
when I'm staying abroad you know and
have all this conversation with them
about issues you know relationships and
others so I got them to pose according
to the kind of emotions I want them to
be and it reflects my emotion back then
I'm a person that spend most of my time
alone so friend kinship and others are
very important to me because I can
actually count them in one hand in terms
of like friends
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it's kind of hard to sit you know what I
do but I usually think of it as be great
horror esque
figures that come together in a semi
abstract way I'm drawn to dissonance
it's the same fascination I have that
leads in from the kind of music that I'm
doing
I've been able to practice full-time now
there's been a steady stream of
exhibitions internationally I never
expected such a favorable response
within such a short time
sometimes when we have an opening I just
can't help but feel when I take the
metro into Marina Bay Sands and then
come out and it's this architecture I
can't laugh you were in The Hunger Games
feel like we're the bad guys for some
some sick reason creates a sort of
nausea in me art stage the first year I
went was probably still student I I
could feel better about it in the sense
that here is this marvelous you know
huge grand in a casino and a few
unwanted you know Singaporean artists
that's how you felt at that point you're
not part of the game that was the first
year I where eventually I I found myself
and my gallery also part of it and I
mean it's it's hard to have an objective
opinion anymore you're either in or
you're out you know that's the kind of
positions you find yourself in but I
would say the great thing that it does
is its exposure having so many people
maybe 40,000 people look at your art and
maybe just a few reach out to you just
the sheer volume of publicity is good
for the country is good for the art
scene
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it's kind of us playing role play in a
sense cuz it's all you know and here we
are and we're trying to blend in with
you so we couldn't feel more out of
place it's easy to spot the artists in
the room it's the guy that doesn't look
like he belongs there not usually so
good at funky suddenly we start having
to be professional you know having name
cards having awards and four men having
to buy suits they were to go to events
or to go to collect this out suppers
it's very very strange because it just
happened in the last maybe five years
six years and I'm still kind of I don't
know amusement kind of feeling like it's
a real as well here in Asia there is not
this knowledge or this feeling this
importance of individualism as we have
in the West they never had here a French
Revolution with all the consequences on
the other hand a contemporary artist is
an individualist so with us we'll have
you already there a certain situation
dealing with a lot of issuance and
Singapore is pretty very tense the
consequences of the law is also very
streak you don't want to be put behind
bars that's gonna take some years I have
my frictional alter-ego Lili when it's
like an icebreaker like a plan for me it
allows me to to talk a little bit more
about certain issues and say Singapore
basically it's like my V for Vendetta
yeah I guess it's artists you know we
have that dual thing of taking money
from the government to make art because
we don't have a large art market here so
we get money from grants to make
but at the same time we want to talk
about topics which might be critical
about the government but if they are you
know it's almost like biting the hand
that feeds you you know that this weird
balance that you have to kind of always
think about in the early 1980s the
galleries that were able to show us the
commercial galleries color was a taboo
sex was a type of politics was taboo
meaning love hey well everything was
taboo they only accepted a circle a
square or a light and he could only say
in front of those were mmm good piece
but they can never say more than that
imagine we didn't fit in because we
didn't feel we wanted to do that kind of
art and so not wanting to the you were
an outsider they became the untouchables
outside the normal weirdos I do agree
that censorship is a big deal
at the same time because of the nature
of my work abstraction dealing with the
human condition even if I'm painting
like say an anal sex scene it it comes
out looking you know maybe a guy making
a cup of coffee
more so than having the CCTV security
camera looming over you is the attitude
of the artist if we grow up with the the
preconceived notion that we are being
watched and what we say will have
repercussions to our career to our
livelihood there is without a doubt a
degree of self-censorship that we even
do on a subconscious level and even a
person like me who now says that okay
you know it doesn't seem to affect me I
really don't know how deeply it's
already in my veins
you know I'm plugged into the system red
teal blue pill and screwed you ever say
like why it's so cool you know you you
you you know but it's really not in cool
about being creative
I think it's same as any other career
it's just that we don't want to follow
certain laws and order and we really
want a certain freedom to fall for
expression our heart is based on reasons
for living what's Q how does it feel
being alive what do we want struggle of
why that's quite exciting for us
I usually comes out from a sudden lack
and I think in a place like Singapore I
actually see many many strong artists
here and I think it could be also
because you know in a place which is so
controlled is as a uncontrollable factor
it's all the more pertinent
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