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Search Singapore Collections Online at http://sgcool.sg to view more works from SAM’s collection,. Singapore Collections Online or SGCOOL is the first online repository of artefacts and artworks in Singapore which makes available highlights from National Heritage Board’s collections to the public. |
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Highlights from our collection |
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Status (2009)by Jane Lee
Mixed media installation
480cm X 420cm X 20cm
Visitors to the Osage Gallery in Singapore may have encountered the dramatic centrepiece of artist Jane Lee’s solo exhibition there last year – an imposing installation soaring 5 metres high in the cavernous exhibition space. Aptly titled Status, the work has now entered the collection of the Singapore Art Museum.
Status is a compelling and contemporary take on the age-old medium of painting. Monumental in scale, the spectacle of Status problematises simplistic categorisation of media, as it crosses boundaries of painting, sculpture and installation. No longer just a representational medium in Lee’s work, the skeins of red paint in Status have literally escaped from the conventional canvas to become their own frame. In this work, paint is a physical entity in its own right, demanding the viewer to approach it from different angles and perspectives. Status is at once sensuous in all its rich colour, viscosity and textural variations, as it is imposingly commanding in its scale. Resembling a doorway or a hallowed
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| portal, Status heralds new ways of thinking about and practising painting in this era of art. The acquisition of this artwork was funded by Binjaitree in honour of Chia Yew Kay.
About the artist
Singaporean artist Jane Lee (b. 1963) has a background in both Fine Arts and Fashion. The recipient of the inaugural Singapore Art Exhibition Prize in 2007, Lee has participated in several notable exhibitions in the region and in Europe, including the 2008 Singapore Biennale where she presented the memorable Raw Canvas. In 2009, the artist had her first major solo exhibition at Osage Gallery (Singapore), which showcased her continued experimentation with painting as a medium as well as a subject. |
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Circle (2009) by Sima Salehi
3 channel video installation, Ed. 1 out of 2
8 mins 57 secs
Filmed in Batam, Indonesia, using untrained, ordinary residents of a local village, this powerful video work by Singapore-based artist Sima Salehi calls upon the ancient symbolism of the circle to explore issues pertaining to the daily, lived experiences of Muslim women. The lyrical quality and allusive images of this work finds resonances in contemporary Iranian cinema, as well as its concern with the subjectivity of women in Islamic communities.
In the artist’s words, “The circle symbolises the structure, boundary, continuity and repetitive nature of tradition, religion, culture and political Islam, and is the basis of society in contemporary Iran, which factors highly importantly in a woman’s everyday life. These collective structures and boundaries are deeply embedded in the psyche and perception of women in this society, placing constraints on those who want to confront it. And yet these social, cultural and religious boundaries are further
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| upheld and reinforced through legal, political and economic institutions.” In this 3-channel video, Sima Salehi thus draws upon her own personal experience as an Iranian woman and the circle’s potent symbolism, and has produced a poignant work that brings myth and fact together, and compels the viewer to examine the repetitive behaviours that keep women within its confines.
Sima Salehi recently graduated from LaSalle College of the Arts, Singapore, with a MA in Fine Arts. |
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Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project (2007 - 2009)
by Alwin Reamillo
(in collaboration with Jaime Pastorfide,Tranquilino Tosio Jr & Rabino Sabas Jr.),
3rd Movement: Manila-Fremantle-Singapore
Mixed media installation, parlour grand piano with image transfers |
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The Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project is a work of many stories and journeys. The artist, Alwin Reamillo, hails from one of the most well-known piano-making family in Philippines, and following the closure of the family business, he went back in search of the lost techniques and now-forgotten methods his late father had developed. Collaborating with the former factory craftsmen, Reamillo has created a work which is both a “social sculpture” and functioning musical instrument – and a deeply poetic piece bound up with family history and memory.
Adorned on various points on the piano are images associated with travel and migration, such as the whale and cartographic markings. Other images are more personal, like a picture of Reamillo’s father, half-hidden under the piano strings. The work’s title is a combination and phonetic play of “Mang Emo” (‘Mang’ suggesting uncle or an affectionate way of addressing a senior figure, ‘Emo’ being his father’s nickname) and “Mag-himo” is a waray word meaning ‘to make, to create, to craft’. Thus on one level, the work is a conceptual portrait in commemoration of Reamillo’s father. Yet the work also draws heavily upon the Filipino notion of “bayanihan” (community solidarity), and from a wider perspective, it also marks the culmination of a collaborative and cross-cultural project that has been going on for more five years, and a journey that has spanned four countries (Philippines, Singapore, Japan and Australia). As an artwork, the piano is also characterised by a generosity of spirit and ability to cross art forms by allowing other artists (musicians) to respond and create new works from it, ensuring that its lifespan and legacy is extended the more it is used and played.
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