Spaces - Hilmi Johandi, Tristan Lim, Ian Tee, Debbie Ding, Sheryl Chua and Kray Chen

This exhibition is held from 4th August to 15th September 2018 at Ota Fine Arts at Gillman Barracks.

The exhibition showed works from Hilmi Johandi, Tristan Lim, Ian Tee, Debbie Ding, Sheryl Chua and Kray Chen.

Hilmi's works were ok. Didn't quite like his colour palette. Ian Tee's blanket wasn't too bad, but we preferred the one he showed at Grey Project's show "The direction I rub one matters". Debbie Ding's works were interesting. Kray Chen's supermarket was really nice, it was a 2 channel work of him supposedly walking about the supermarkets in France.

Points for collectors: Not sure if we would get anything from this exhibition but all the artists are skilled and talented. But we also give Hilmi and Kray Chen buy ratings. Ian Tee interesting and got to see where he goes.

Size Matters: A Question of Scale

This exhibition was held from 23rd June to 22nd July 2018 over at Chan+Hori Contemporary over at Gillman Barracks.

This show was of large scale works from their stable of artitsts. Loi Cai Xiang, Simon Ng, Si Jae Byun, Ruben Pang, Gerald Leow, Ivan David Ng, Esmond Loh, Belinda Fox and Shahrul Jamili Miskon.

Nice interesting works. Esmond Loh was doing something radically different.

Points for collectors: We like Loi Cai Xiang, Simon Ng, Ruben Pang and Ivan David Ng. The rest of the artists are good too. 

Alma Matter - NAFA Alumni

This exhibition was held from 24th May to 17th June 2018 at Chan+Hori Contemporary over at Gillman Barracks.

This exhibition features works by Samuel Chen, Khairul Ikhwan, Warren Khong, Fiona Koh, Loi Cai Xiang, Justin Loke, Ong Si Hui, Ezzam Rahman, Sebastian Mary Tay and Ella Wijt.

Ezzam Rahman's work caught our eye. He showed 3 of his skin works. But this time he had better control of his medium. The works were covered with resin and planted into a carbon substrate and arranged aesthetically nicely like flowers. Conceptually strong and aesthetically pleasing.

Points for collectors: Ezzam Rahman is a strong buy. Loi Cai Xiang is given a buy rating too. We like Warren Khong, Ong Si Hui and Justin Loke too.

The Evolution of Eian & Eien - Aiman Hakim

This exhibition is held from 16th May to 12th August 2018 at Art Porter's Gallery.

We have seem Aiman Hakim's previous works - his sculptures and his realistic paintings of toys and objects.

This is an evolution of his work, realistic representations of 2 protagonists to deal with issues of the world.

He is a good painter and we were excited to see his advancement. However, there was still something missing with his paintings. Almost there but not quite there. Some aspects in the paintings were missing or not gelling together. Things like depth in the paintings and dynamism/flow of the painting (should read Rudolf Arnheim) and the use of symbolism/ allegory to express himself is not very original or exciting or outstanding. Not enough to give you a "wow! must buy" type of feeling.

Points for collectors: For the above reasons, we give him a neutral rating. We will sit on the sidelines and still follow him. Still some elements missing but hope he will continue working and find solutions to the problem areas. But we're happy that he has managed to sell quite a few already. 

Lingering Manifestations - Various

This exhibition is held from 29th April 2018 to 29th July 2018 at Pearl Lam Galleries at Gillman Barracks.

This exhibition features Boo JunFeng, Zulkifli Lee, Ben Loong, Gatot Pujiarto, John Young and Zhou YangMing.

But we will talk about Ben Loong's works. He presented more plaster works coated with resin. And some works were on wood and some on canvas. The was some gold pigments worked into the works too. He is learning how to control the plaster and is starting to add figuration to his works.

Really nice works. There was also a smaller work in the office which had more gold in it. Possibly a preview of things to come?

Ben Loong's works are in white

Points for collectors: Strong buy rating for Ben Loong. Good Artist to follow.