Departure, Mixed Media Assemblage

Amphetamine, Cloth tape on wood board. Click for full view.

KC Gan is a Fine Arts Sculpture student at LaSalle College Of The Arts. Appropriate to his obsessive nature, his entire life revolves around planning, producing, discussing and viewing Visual Art, and seeking the meaning of existence.

KC about his work: “As an artist, I create artwork with the intention of challenging people’s perception of the world around them. Sandwiched between familiarity and discomfort. Serving as a scope, my artwork gives others a peek into my own personal vision of the world. My personal vision of the world is an alternate reality, which resides only within my frame of mind. A world fortified with a thick layer of chaos, creating a strong sense of security, a personal “utopia”. Created through combining, replacing, reducing, imitating and repeating elements of the world around us. The consequences are visions, which even I myself, cannot comprehend yet accept unconditionally. Balancing on a thin line of uncertainty and refuge, my personal world would situate any viewer into a position of improbability. Subsequent to the viewer’s initial reaction, they would attempt to comprehend the vision seen before them. Through this attempt of making sense of the disarray, their imagination is jolted into full throttle.”

Christopher Lim’s watch immediately caught my eye at the SMALL THOUGHTS BIG IDEAS exhibition last November.

Through his design, called ‘Only 1’, Christopher has created the most personal watch. By allowing the wearer to lock in his preference of twelve dates for twelve special occasions on its external dial, no two watches will be the same.

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Michelle Wong is  a 20-year-old fresh off fashion designer from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Michelle has a flair for fine tailored garments, and the featured pieces commanded some cosmic attention during the Parco Fashion Incubator contest last November.

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Freelance Graphic Designer Niko Lin enjoys experimenting with different design styles. She believes that engaging design is not about creating brand new ideas, but to present something in a different perspective, allowing people to notice things they often take for granted.

The featured project, titled My/Your First Impression, is a large format publication, documenting the accuracy of our snap judgements about strangers.

Niko about her project: “Being a relatively impatient person, I rely on my snap judgements a lot. However, as a kid, I was told over and over again –haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and think. Consequently, I often wonder how accurate my judgements really are. I decided to measure the accuracy of my first impressions on strangers with a little experiment.

On Christmas Eve, I spent a day in Bristol, giving out Christmas cards to grumpy-looking people, whom I thought would not accept my card. Most people I interviewed responded that they do judge others, and the majority saw this as unacceptable. I then decided to conduct another test, aiming at measuring the accuracy of everyone’s first impressions. Around 50 people took a survey of six simple questions, and the results of this survey were then correlated with evaluations by my friends and their close friends.”

Another designer that caught my attention at the SMALL THOUGHTS BIG IDEAS exhibition last November, is Lee Yun Qin.

Yun Qin’s unassuming and considerate demeanour is translated into her two designs that she hopes bring joy in little ways to its user.  ‘Tea Stick’ takes the pain out of tea bag tags that often slip into the hot tea, whilst ‘Sugarbloom’ ensures you don’t overdose on sugar as you don’t want to disturb the sugary floral arrangement.

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Ruben Pang is a third year Fine Arts student at Lasalle,  graduating in May 2010.

The pictured artworks are part of a series of five paintings titled Division. In this body of work, Ruben explores passive aggressive landscapes; something that is definitely cold and lifeless but somewhat resonating with decay, and decay indicates the presence of some form of life.

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In 2008, Terry Yeo graduated from the Universtity of Huddersfields, UK with a BA(Hons) in Fashion Design. In July 2009, Terry and his two buddies -Joe Kee and Ronnie Cheng-  decided to launch the ForInSaneHuman label.

Terry about the label: “We want to create a new style that provides consumers with another option when purchasing, while providing the label opportunities to create a new fashion statement in the local fashion line. We challenge the clubbing style in both the men and ladies wear market by designing over the top, yet wearable designs. Heavy details and the unconventional cutting is the major focus of each collection.”

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Hitting the shelves today is +65 Indie Underground, a three-CD compilation documenting the D-I-Y Indie band scene from the mid 80s to present. With the success of 100 Greatest Singapore 60s: The Definitive Collection and More Singapore 60s: Treasures From The Vault, another important period in Singapore music history has now been documented.

The collection features 50 tracks in total from the following artists: Typewriter. Postbox. The Marilyns. A Vacant Affair. Amateur Takes Control. MUON. The Analog Girl. B-Quartet. The Great Spy Experiment. I Am David Sparkle. Astreal. Lunarin. Opposition Party. Ronin. Electrico. The Observatory. aspidistrafly. Serenaide. Tiramisu. Force Vomit. Plainsunset. Boredphucks. The Ordinary People. Livonia. Stroll. Psycho Sonique. Sugaflies. Stoned Revivals. Etc. Concave Scream. Kelvin Tan. The Lilac Saints. Suchness. The Mother. Stompin’ Ground. Humpback Oak. The Pagans. S.U.D.S. Padres. Watchmen. The Oddfellows. The Nonames. Convent Garden. Nunsex. Global Chaos. Twang Bar Kings. Daze. Corporate Toil. Razor’s Edge. Zircon Lounge.

For a taste of what to expect, here is an excerpt from +65 Indie Underground written by X’Ho: “Is Singapore rock alive and free at last? Growth – with stunted roots – is surely a struggle, especially where a collective mind-set is concerned. But we try … what with punk being post-punk now, firmly entrenched in the mainstream. To those who forged in the 80s, we thank and remember for sowing the seeds.”

+65 Indie Underground is available from all major stores.