AC43 Gallery is thrilled to debut an exciting pairing of artists in the month of December. Titled Spotlight: Boo Sze Yang x Ivan David Ng, the showcase is set to be on display at the gallery from 1-13 December 2022.
Keeping to our belief that more could still be done in terms of prioritising and highlighting the work of talented and young emerging art practitioners in Singapore, we have assembled a collection of works that span across painting, paper, and the use of textiles by the featured artists. They collectively demonstrate the wide and varied ways in which art can be both expressive of present perspectives and yet inventive at the same time.
Left: Boo Sze Yang, Still Water Runs Deep #6, 2022; Oil on linen; 152 x 122 cm.
Right: David Ng, A Means of Knowing #1, 2022; Thread, ice dye on cotton, acrylic, canvas, kozo paper, archival digital print, banner, charcoal, linen, handmade paper, Chinese ink, mixed media paper and flashe paint; 93 x 65 cm.
Time as encapsulated in the works of Ivan David Ng and Boo Sze Yang resembles a multifarious entity held in suspension.
Existing in the works of Ivan David Ng as harvested swaths of fabric, paper and canvas from various points of his artistic journey, the entity of time is first fragmented, then made to overlap and amalgamate with the help of the merciless sewing machine, planting stitches firmly into and across these materials. What is unexpectedly fabricated are irregular forms that contain a renewed visual language, and by extension, promises of new meaning.
Adopting painting as a different method of art-making, Boo Sze Yang’s paintings also frame the entity of time as one that is unmoving, yet not completely frozen. Abstracting transitory places into multi-planar structures and shrouding them with broad vertical and horizontal strokes that intersect, these structures are seemingly appended in space. However, the repetition of such strokes imbues the works with an active dynamism that continuously de-stabilises our perception of the subject matter.
- Celine Ho
Left: Boo Sze Yang, The Edge of Shadows #2, 2020; Oil on linen, 80 x 100 cm.
Right: Ivan David Ng, A Means of Knowing #5, 2022; Thread, linen, ice dye on cotton, laser print, acrylic, canvas, kozo paper, archival digital print, banner, charcoal, linen, handmade paper and mixed media paper; 98 x 65 cm.
Ivan David Ng
"These series of collages showcase the effect of time in my art practice and my approach to making; they are part of my ongoing investigations about the interactions of materiality, image and mark.
The pieces are created from harvested materials from various points in my artistic journey, between 2014 and 2022. Many of these papers, fabric, prints and ephemera, have traveled with me across the world, bearing witness to discouragement and loss in the artist studio; some have even been incorporated into other earlier works which have now been taken apart.
As fragments of a painting from 2014 become conjoint with a piece of ice-dyed fabric from 2022, time is compressed in these works. The slowness in the harvesting of these materials is pit against the haste of the sewing machine. The sewing machine prevails in adamantly bonding materials that are disparate, creating unexpected pairings. The seams, joints and abundance of stray threads and ends reiterate the heterogeneous nature of the materials, now bound to each other. These materials, which hold unique backstories, now come together to shed their old stories. In their new configurations, they start to interact and form new visual languages and new meaning. The act of making/joining is a means of searching for this new meaning — making is a means of knowing.
For me, making is not a teleological act but a means of knowing. The end, and its attendant meaning, is not envisioned from the beginning. Instead, the piece is found and known as I create."
With a multi-approach art practice informed by a painter’s sensibilities, Ivan David Ng (b. 1991, Singapore - ) is interested in ideas surrounding provenance of things, secrets hiding in plain sight and the act of making as a means of knowing. He received his BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Summa Cum Laude and has exhibited in Singapore, the US and South Korea. He has also worked on projects with Louis Vuitton, Singapore Land Group and Christian Liaigre.
Ivan David Ng, A Means of Knowing #4, 2022; Thread, oil paint on primed paper, ice dye on cotton, laser print, acrylic, canvas, kozo paper, archival digital print, banner, charcoal, linen, handmade paper, Chinese ink and mixed media paper; 100 x 82 cm
Ivan David Ng, A Means of Knowing #3, 2022; Thread, oil paint on primed paper, screenprint on ephemera, ice dye on cotton, laser print, acrylic, canvas, gampi paper dyed with red pigment, kozo paper, archival digital print, banner, charcoal, handmade paper, Chinese ink and mixed media paper; 86 x 72 cm
Ivan David Ng, A Means of Knowing #2, 2022; Thread, ice dye on cotton, laser print, acrylic, canvas, kozo paper, archival digital print, banner, charcoal, linen, handmade paper, Chinese ink, mixed media paper and flashe paint; 112 x 72 cm
Boo Sze Yang
"'Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. – Martin Luther King'
At the edge of shadows, there will be light. Our anxieties are like the shadows cast from the back of our dreams and hopes. The greater our aspirations in lives are, the deeper the shadows dwell.
My works draw inspiration from the city I lived in, particularly in transitional spaces such as shopping malls, airports, train stations and construction sites. The environment where we live has a direct impact on our relationships with nature and the wider culture. Being a tiny island city-state that is constantly in a state of construction and renewal, the pursuit for development and progress has given rise to a long-standing dilemma regarding solutions on modern living and the impact it has on the natural environment.
These series of semi-abstract paintings attempt to push the boundaries between the real and the imagined within an idiosyncratic and subliminal landscape. The layered network of multi-spatial structures within the painting mirrors the evolving landscapes in our urban city.
These imageries do not evoke real moments of memories but refer to a special, in-between zone of the real space and the utopia — a baffling place where reality and fantasy coexist."
Boo Sze Yang (b. 1965, Singapore - ) is a distinguished artist who has amassed many awards throughout his practice. Boo works with a diverse range of subject matter in his paintings, ranging from mundane domestic objects to images of cars and airplanes crashing, derelict interiors of cathedrals and unpopulated chambers of shopping malls. Boo treats these banal objects, destructive scenes and modern architectural interiors as metaphors for the human condition, where he transforms them into symbols of contemporary life. He typically works with a restrained palette and alongside a loose, gestural painting technique, to emphasise the materiality of paint.
Boo also explores the portraiture, where he would blend his personal experiences with everyday social and political events to generate uncanny and idiosyncratic expressionistic portraitures, which serves as comical observations of everyday life.
Boo Sze Yang, In-Between Places #11, 2022; Oil on linen, 80 x 100 cm
Boo Sze Yang, In-Between Places #12, 2022; Oil on linen, 80 x 100 cm