Arts Picks
Rare Chua Ek Kay ink works from a private collection on show at Lasalle retrospective
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The Clarity After at Lasalle College of the Arts.
PHOTO: LASALLE COLLEGE OF THE ARTS
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The Clarity After
Nearly 50 ink paintings by Cultural Medallion recipient Chua Ek Kay are now at Lasalle College of the Arts, showcasing the second-generation painter’s experimentation with the quintessentially Asian medium.
The works from an anonymous private collection are being displayed to the public for the first time, and visitors can trace the artist’s lifelong search for a unique visual language.
From more straightforward homages to still lifes of orchids to his later iconic abstract lilies that resemble an exploded grid of vertical and horizontal signs, Chua’s oeuvre still manages to retain contemporary freshness.
The exhibition cites his belated formal art education at Lasalle and visit to Australia – with its heightened landscape and spiritual Aboriginal art – as inflection points in his practice.
Later, he uses Singapore’s shophouses to substitute the mountains that more traditionally anchor Chinese scrolls. His ink washes are rendered dynamic through variations in tone, and the single vanishing point of Western painting and the more vertical composition of Chinese art are brought together in harmonious conversation.
In a video, the late artist says he thought there was no point in exhibiting Chinese art in Beijing and Shanghai. All his life, he had been driven by a desire to create something new, contemporary and different.
The limits of language are where art resides. “Good art doesn’t require anyone to speak too much for it – that is what I believe,” he says.
Where: Gallery 1, Lasalle College of the Arts, 1 McNally Street str.sg/ygYZ
MRT: Rochor
When: Till Dec 20, Mondays to Saturdays, noon to 7pm
Admission: Free
Info:
Voices – A Festival Of Song 2025
Vocal groups The Island Voices (pictured) and MICappella will perform together on Dec 5.
PHOTO: THE ISLAND VOICES
The Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay’s 13th Voices – A Festival Of Song has two concerts in December.
The first, on Dec 5, unites two of Singapore’s most dynamic vocal groups, MICappella and The Island Voices, for a night of unexpected vocal arrangements and crowd-pleasing covers.
MICappella and their punchy hits have taken them across China, Europe, the United States and Australia, while fast-rising The Island Voices have performed at recent National Day Parades.
The second concert on Dec 7, titled A Choir-ed Taste, is for the more chorally inclined. It features Musicians’ Inc. 6 (MI6) – a group of six choral conductors and music educators – and the festival’s choir, a group of youth aged between 17 and 26.
MICappella and their punchy hits have taken them across China, Europe, the United States and Australia.
PHOTO: MICAPPELLA
Where: Esplanade Concert Hall, 1 Esplanade Drive str.sg/8Qxz str.sg/cdm7
MRT: Esplanade/City Hall
When: Dec 5, 7.30pm, and Dec 7, 5pm
Admission: From $35
Info:
Pacita Abad: Common Ground
Pacita Abad: Common Ground.
PHOTO: STPI – CREATIVE WORKSHOP & GALLERY
Filipino-American queen of confectionery circles Pacita Abad’s kaleidoscopic works take centre stage at STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery.
Born in 1946, the late artist upended artistic hierarchies long before the art world’s current turn to craft and traditions of the Global South. Amid a new global appreciation of the artist at major museums and biennales, STPI has brought out some of the works she created during her 2003 residency there.
Her paper-pulp collages and three-dimensional assemblages incorporate mirror embroidery from India, ink-brush painting from South Korea and batik from Indonesia, using her trademark trapunto method – involving quilting and padding and the stitching of cowrie shells.
The many circles – sometimes a fish lens into an idyllic landscape, other times the screws that hold a “self portrait” together or intricately designed like a seal carving – are her unifying motif. She described the shape as “direct, simple, modern, universal, intimate, fascinating and playful”.
Have a gander, too, at the Alkaff Bridge just outside STPI, which Abad designed for Singapore in the final years of her life, partly while undergoing radiotherapy for cancer.
It was almost at risk of being repainted grey in 2018, but a successful fund-raising effort put a stop to this. Today, the conspicuous bridge spanning the Singapore River has become a symbol for Singapore-Philippines bilateral relations.
Where: STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, 41 Robertson Quay str.sg/5Pgv
MRT: Clarke Quay/Fort Canning
When: Till Dec 13, Mondays to Saturdays, 10am to 7pm
Admission: Free
Info:
