Coming up ahead in April/May

Things are picking up again after the rush of Art stage/ Art Week. But those that went to Art Basel HK and Art Paris, must be still feeling a bit fatigued.

Anyway interesting things which I can update you with since it's official.

1. Ian Woo will open on 10th April 2015 at Tomio Koyama with "Falling off plastic Chairs."

2. Bradley Foisset, Luke Heng and Hilmi Johandi will have a group exhibition "Peculiar Textures" at the revamped Galerie Steph at HeluTrans in May/June.

3. Jane Lee will be doing a Residency at STPI  in April 2015. Not sure when we will see the works, but possibly at Art Stage next year.

4. Still Life - A Frozen Moment is on till 19th April at SpaceCotton Seed. I think it will be worth a look.

Haven't been down to Gillman Barracks since they changed the parking rate. Only the 1st hour free on Saturday, but Sunday still free. But Sunday's not good for me. Guess it doesn't affect the galleries much as they have their entitlement of free parking coupons to give to their cilents.

And as usual art related industries can get away with slow updating of their website >3 months.

Whereas a non-art firm like Mason's is spot on. 

Fresh Takes - various young artists

This exhibition is held at ChanHampe Galleries from 11th to 29th March 2015.

The exhibition is held in the spirit of SG50. These young artists are invited by the gallery to reinterpret any works which are in the National collection. And the responses were good. Some of the artists chose paintings; Alvin Ong rehashed Chua Mia Tee's famous painting, Epic Poem of Malaya.

Alvin Ong's work

Others like Sheryo chose objects from the museum. Sheryo reinterpreted door gods, like the Nias gods and came up with the modernised DoorMaster Ang.

DoorMaster Ang

Sheryo is a street artist and I liked the way she roughened the canvas to make it more like an uneven wall. Maybe she paints better with this texture.

Of the ten artists which were presented, I felt Alvin Ong, Koh Liang Jiang, Yeo Jian Long, Sheryo, Esmond Loh and Aiman Hakim are artists to watch.

Points for Collectors: Think at the time of writing, Alvin, Koh Liang Jiang, Yeo Jian Long and Sheryo's works have been sold. These artists are buys. Esmond Loh has to improve and go to art school first. But he definitely has talent. Aiman Hakim is neutral to buy as I felt his price is a bit high and thought that while his pieces show his talent it still lacks the factor that would lead a collector to burst his/her budget. Hard core collectors will know what I mean.

Very Sad Day today

Rest in Peace Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

Very very sad.....

2015

This year is quite a busy year for me because of other commitments and distractions besides art.

Been to a few exhibitions which I have not written up on, as I find that either I have nothing useful to say, nothing to comment, the exhibition is not worth it to waste my time to write about it or not worth your (the reader) time.

So for certain exhibitions I will just post a one liner, like : Artists imagine a nation:SG50 | Pictures of people and places from the collections of Koh Seow Chuan and friends. This one is held at ICAs (LaSalle at McNally street) from 13th February till 19th April 2015.

Caught it and was interesting. But the write up / curatorial team needs to improve;you read the write up and other stuff when you are there and you'll know what I mean. The art industry gets away with these things, anywhere else you'll get your head chewed off.

So do pop in once in a while to check on my posts! Thanks.

Shifting Points - Tam Kwan Yuen

This exhibition is held from 7th to 15th March 2015 at Artcommune Gallery at Bras Basah Complex.

Ky Tam is currently the best young watercolourist in Singapore. He is really good at painting very detailed work with watercolour.

In this exhibition, he experiments more with softer edges. (Has to practice more with this style which I think he will be able to). But his more representative paintings are definitely superb. In fact he painted a large,  90cm x 180cm painting of the Singapore Skyline which was sold with a list price of SGD19K. And that piece was a well executed piece.

You should check out his website, http://kytam.com, to see his works.

Points for collectors: Strong Buy. He hasn't raised his price from his last exhibition. He is also actively entering overseas watercolour competitions and trying to get shown overseas. This international recognition is really important to an artist, because as a collector you want an international artist rather than a national artist (i.e. whose works are only in demand in his home country).