It is a show of Malaysian and Singaporean artists to underline the Bilateral Bonds and thus is held over the National Days of both countries and a parallel show will also run in the KL gallery.
I will mainly focus on the local artists and leave out the Malaysian artists.
1. Allison Low - she showed her earlier works, I think maybe she will show newer ones at the KL show. So my earlier comments for her stand.
2. Aiman Hakim showed another piece from his Toy Story series. Looks better on screen, possibly because the software sharpened the image. In the flesh, didn't look too good.Was a bit flat and the objects weren't very sharp. But it was a big piece, 2.75m in length.
3. Simon Ng - Did some more works along the 'Mysterious skin' vein. It was a pair of paintings, one more impasto and the other with thinner paint layers/flatter brush strokes. They were good works. In fact the paintings work very well as a diptych. We feel that in these two paintings, he has solved quite a few of the problems that were evident in his works shown at 'Mysterious Skin'. Definitely a marked improvement.
4. Dzaki Safaruan - Showed more paper cuts, similar to the one in 'Locals Only' and AAF. Was ok. But still think the one at AAF was much better. Just have to see how he develops.
5. Miguel Chew - Did really nice work. Basically made 3 boxes and in the boxes were his screen printing on perspex. Aesthetically very nice work. However, the attention to detail wasn't there, i.e. the finish of the work, things that certain artists would have a fit over if the work were to be shown with this finish. Even if the artist says it is intentional, it still doesn't look intentional enough to the viewer.
Miguel Chew
Dzaki Safaruan
Simon Ng
Aiman Hakim
Allison Low
Points for collectors: Simon Ng - Strong Buy. Aiman Hakim - neutral to hold off. Allison Low - Buy. Dzaki Safaruan - have to see how he goes, still very young. Miguel Chew - buy if the work didn't have quality issues. A problem with local artists is that they are asking for quite a high price. Compared to the Malaysian artists on show, the local art comes across as very steep. Think it has to do with forex and the cost of living. But I feel that the price gap between the young artists vs the mid career/establishing artists is narrow, and we often find ourselves thinking if I top up X dollars I could buy (insert more established local artist name here).
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