artcommune and AC43 Gallery are pleased to present The Story of Two Presses, which delves into the little-known history and collaborative culture of contemporary printmaking in Singapore. Featuring works by Chen Cheng Mei, Chng Seok Tin, Chen Shitong, Chiew Sien Kuan, Chua Chon Hee, Ho E Moi, Nhawfal Juma’at, Nyan Soe, Oh Chai Hoo and Tan Sock Fong, this multi-generational showcase centres on the developments of two specific printmaking workshops helmed by local artists in Singapore - the LASALLE Printing Workshop (in LASALLE College of the Arts) led by Chen Cheng Mei and Chng Seok Tin between the mid-1980s and 1990s, and Pulp Editions founded by Chen Shitong in 2017.
Though operating over 30 years apart, both printers embody the fervent ground-up initiative of local artists whose passion and sacrifices became instrumental in developing the contemporary printmaking scene in Singapore. The Story of Two Presses presents around 30 fine art prints spanning the period of 1980s to 2022, with almost all being produced in these two workshops.
Celebration of Chng Seok Tin’s birthday, circa 1992.
Artists Ho E Moi, Chen Cheng Mei, and Chng Seok Tin (from left to right in the foreground) with students at the LASALLE Printing Workshop in Telok Kurau. Photograph courtesy of Dahlia Osman (2nd from right in the background), student of Chng Seok Tin.
More often than not, a series of small, thoughtful gestures from one or two individuals is all it takes to set forth a course of meaningful developments for an entire community. In 1985, the dedication of Brother Joseph McNally, who founded LASALLE College of the Arts in 1984, was met with an equal measure of selflessness from artist Chen Cheng Mei, who readily helped facilitate the inception of the school’s printmaking department by placing her own newly imported English etching press and print materials in the school’s printing workshop for all students and interested artists to use.
Chen Cheng Mei (b. 1927, Singapore - d. 2020, Singapore) herself was primarily an oil painter who had trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (1949-54). While visiting Paris in 1980, she hung out at the renowned Atelier 17 printer owned by Stanley William Hayter and was determined to experiment further with press techniques. This prompted her purchase of an expensive English etching press in 1985 for her personal use. In the early years of the newly-opened LASALLE, Brother McNally had had to contend with limited funds and resources, and Chen Cheng Mei’s generous gestures had allowed the school to run its printmaking department with verve and aptitude. Her informal gifting of the etching press and materials enabled LASALLE to hire Chng Seok Tin (b. 1946, Singapore - d. 2019, Singapore), who had just returned to Singapore after many years of training and experimenting with print techniques in the US, to helm the department in 1985. In the late 80s, Chen Cheng Mei also added an imported German lithograph press to the workshop. Over the years, she continued to donate many print materials including paper, imported plates and acids to the workshop.
As a teacher and mentor, Chng Seok Tin was instrumental in fostering the first of print majors amongst art students in Singapore. For up until the late 80s, printmaking was offered only as an exposure module at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the lessons focused more on woodcut and silkscreen printing. LASALLE was effectively the first art school in Singapore to offer a degree majoring in Print, encouraging a more specialised interest in etching and lithography.
Between 1985 and up till the 2000s, Chen Cheng Mei, Chng Seok Tin and Ho E Moi (also Chen’s sister-in-law) worked often at the LASALLE Printing Workshop to produce their own etchings and lithographs. Several students and graduates from LASALLE who were active members of the Contemporary Printmaking Association, Singapore, such as Tan Sock Fong (b. 1966, Singapore, who was amongst LASALLE’s first batch of print majors), also produced many of their works here. In an informal and organic manner, the LASALLE printing workshop functioned as a fecund space where artists of different backgrounds and styles came together to learn and transfer knowledge, bonded by a common interest to pursue contemporary printmaking as an avenue of expression.
The Story of Two Presses aims to celebrate this uniqueness and spirit embodied by the LASALLE printing workshop with a selection of prints completed by Chen Cheng Mei, Chng Seok Tin, Ho E Moi and Tan Sock Fong in this very space.
Hong Shu-ying
Exercises in Excision 划画·画划
in conjunction with Wong Keen: Forest
8–31 October 2022
Confounded by the spectrum of emotions associated with flesh and meat, Shu-ying explores how images of flesh and meat are made and utilised in 划画·画划 Exercises in Excision.
In 划画 Exercises (translated as cut-up images), Shu photographs and reimagines Wong Keen’s flesh sculptures from the series Forest. Masqueraded as seductively beautiful layers of colours and paper forms, Wong’s candid studies of our desires towards flesh and meat belie the violent and visceral at first glance. This uneasy coexistence echoes the thin line between meat and flesh.
Wong's sculptural paintings are re-presented as flattened images again through photography. The focus shifts to specific textures while the surrounding visuals melt into blurs of colours in an ambiguous space, much like how our ideals of flesh and meat are often disembodied or removed from context.
In 画划 Excisions (translated as imaging the gash), Shu creates abstract compositions from her personal archive of ultrasound scans from an excision biopsy. In contrast with languages of care and notions of physical wellness, intrusive and aggressive medical procedures often feel violent and disorientating. What do we make of these trimmings of ourselves that are removed, not for consumption but for health; do we see them as flesh or meat?
The collaged scans possess an obscure and cryptic quality, appearing serene and sinuous at first glance; yet this is disrupted by traces of medical imaging. This juxtaposition of the natural-looking monochromatic forms with crosses, gradients and grids in colour creates tension that challenges the wholesomeness of these images.
These exercises of reimagining different images of flesh and meat further excise the imaged bodies, serving as a reminder that they were once part of living entities. How are flesh and bodies rendered through the eyes of an artist and the lenses of medical devices?
Left: 划画 Exercises #1, 2022, UV Print on Digital Acrylic, Editions of 3
Right: 划画 Exercises #5, 2022, UV Print on Digital Acrylic, Editions of 3
About the Artist
Hong Shu-ying (b.1997, Singapore) works with metaphors she finds in familiarity. Informed by her lived experiences growing up in Singapore, she is a keen observer of the traces people leave on and for one another.
Shu recently graduated with a BFA in Media Art (Photography) from the Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media. She has participated in exhibitions and festivals in Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and China. Recently, she was awarded the Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Photography 2021, her works were also recognised during the 7th Women in Film and Photography Showcase 2021 by Objectifs (Singapore).
