20-year-old Sarah Choo specializes in oil painting and mixed media artworks. She is currently studying at NTU ADM, and interning at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute. Sarah has participated in various competitions and clinched several awards, including the ‘UOB painting of the year Award’.

Sarah’s first work -titled Unbearable Lightness- depicts the different stages, both emotionally and physically, in a bulimic’s life. “Wanting to convey the struggles a bulimic faces, I chose clothing as a representational matter,” she explains. “Without a definite human body, the sense of unfamiliarity and emptiness and be achieved. Through the stringing up of my clothes from various stages in life, I intend to convey the bulimic’s mindset of controlling oneself yet being controlled by the disorder itself. As the mindset of a bulimic is cultivated since young, the clothes which are being strung up follow the order of growth. With each clothing getting thinner, the physical form of disintegration is exemplified. The final piece of clothing -a blue dress- depicts the current /final stage of a bulimic. Devoid of emotions, bulimia has taken its toll, causing one to feel extremely exhausted and helpless, thus, the collapsed dress on the ground being held up by only one string. The feeling of being suspended is heightened through the use of lighting and contrast on the blue dress. The theatrical and dramatic effect of the clothes being puppeted in a dark room further exemplifies  the theme of self seclusion in a bulimic patient.”

Constricted by perpetual adversities in life, the arduous search for solutions seems to evoke more uncertainties.  In Sarah’s second work – titled What Comes After Silence-  a pair of hands is bound by ropes which restrict. “One struggles to break free from an intangible restraint as the once taut rope is now, snapped. Will such an escape truly free an individual? Amidst still darkness, one wonders; what comes after silence?”

Liang Yanjie is a recent graduate of the Industrial Design course at NUS. “I enjoy the process of designing and relish the joy of seeking inspirations from seemingly unrelated areas when thinking about my designs,” he adds. “I am currently trying to increase the experience/knowledge/adventure quotient in my life.”

About his design: “Conventional cable tools are usually laborious and ineffective and Wisteria attempts to solve the problem, bringing a touch of nature indoors at the same time by allowing users to “grow their own electronic garden”. Users are able to express themselves with the number of modules, arranging the modules and arranging the cables eventually. Wisteria can also be used to hang small items such as jewellery or act as a wall decoration or a wall partition.”

Wisteria received a Merit Award at the 2009 Furniture Design Awards, and was one of the shortlisted entries at the “the intelligent hand” competition organized by designboom & MACEF.

Jack Ying is a young art-practitioner who received her BA(Hons) Fine Arts from LASALLE in 2010. Her experience of shifting from one environment to another sparked off her interest to explore the notion of change, which subsequently resulted in her investigations on temporality, construction and displacement. Shifting (Re)Iteration is a series of artwork that evidenced her interests in home and displacement. Moving on from the Shifting (Re)Iteration series, she is now directing her interests to the notion of loss and death.

“Shifting (Re)Iteration III is an investigation on the relation of home and security; objects and memories,” Jack Ying explains. “Our home, however, is built upon the memories that have been created in a domestic space. In a lot of ways, objects in a domestic space are like footages that give trace memories of the inhabitants. It is important for human beings to make sense of the past so that we can be certain of who we are in the present. Memory – in many ways is a form of story telling about our past, and is an essential element in giving us our sense of belonging; our identity. To forget is to lose a memory, which leads to an uncertainty to our past and thus makes one experience displacement. Therefore, to avoid this uncertainty, there is a desire to remember and to protect memory from being lost. The desire to remember can be seen from our behaviour. An example is when shifting, the object or personal belonging such as cup; chair, table, wardrobe or bed that we use daily are often wrapped and kept in a box and brought to the new place. Objects in a domestic space are often seen as something with sentimental value. However, originally, objects are meaningless, it is through experiences and interactions with these objects in a domestic space where one gives it a value, a sentimental meaning or memory to it. Therefore, the act of wrapping and keeping can be seen as a form of protection – protection to the intangible memories, behaviour of the old place. We therefore desire the status-quo.”

Jack Ying has participated in numerous exhibitions and received awards such as the 27^th UOB painting of the year (2008), the Georgette Chen Arts Scholarship (2008), the Winston Oh Travel Award, NAC Arts bursary in 2009. In 2010, she emerged winner of the France + Singapore New Generation Artist award and held her first solo exhibition at Alliance Francaise de Singapour.

This month’s banner comes from photojournalist, Timothy Sim. I posted about his work back in January when he was doing his NS, and since, Timothy’s featured photograph titled -Ties That Bind- made it to the top ten at the Sony World Photography Awards in the Amateur Documentary category.

For the banner, Timothy used a photograph of graduating officer cadets from the SAF, flinging their dress caps in unison at the end of the parade. It’s such a fun image, and makes me wish I was up there with them, bumping chests and leaping into the air.

The  Organisation of Illustrators Council turns four, and they are giving all Singapore based illustrators a chance to show off their work on a new platform that will be launched some time closer to their anniversary, on 18th October 2010.

HOW TO TAKE PART:

1. Register here
2. Download the instructions
3. Post questions here

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

1. This call for entries is open to all budding students/ hobbyist/ professional illustrators residing and practicing in Singapore.
2. No age limit.
3. You can submit maximum 3 entries per artist based on any combination of the listed themes.
4. New Artwork preferred.
5. Artwork must be submitted as instructed and in the stated formats and sizes. Read the instructions.
6. Each artist must have a proper dedicated folio blog of illustrated works with contact info ( email address / hp number etc ).
7. Only selected works will be featured on our final “project” based on careful evaluation by OIC’s selection panel to ensure quality control. This clause is only added to assure participants we hope to uphold quality and good work..
8. Closing date is 31st July 2010 2359hrs

Born in 1988 in Jakarta, Kelvin Atmadibrata has been living in Singapore for the past eight years. Currently pursuing a BFA in Interactive Media at the NTU School of Art, Design and Media, Kelvin’s main practice involves installation, performance and mixed media works.

“For me, the process and research of art making becomes more important than the formal qualities of the works,” Kelvin says. “By creating installation and performance pieces, I am able to explore art as a documentation and a study of the subjects that I am working on. I am particularly interested in creating characters and landscapes which mimic the uncanny attributes found in RPG video games, hence art making becomes a realization of a personal fantasy.”

Men and Acorns -featured above- is a series of works exploring the idea of body, sexuality and authority within the concept of men. “I like using receipts, because I find that they are different, visually interesting and they evolve with time. In this series of mixed media works, I am experimenting with various materials, including tissue paper and cut-out drawings. Acorns are used as a satirical symbol for men’s genitals, and was previously used by Michelangelo for his athlete paintings in the Sistine Chapel.”

Make sure to click on the images, to see the other works in the series.

Here at Culturepush, we welcome the freedom of speech wholeheartedly. We respect every reader’s fundamental right to express his or her opinions on any local artist’s works as herewith highlighted by us. Constructive criticism, we believe, will lead to the betterment of our local artists.

However, we do not condone trolls.

We do not welcome futile, unintelligent, petty comments made by trolls who haven’t got the courage to use their real names or email addresses when providing their feedback. Of late, one may have noticed an unusual wave of insults hurled by seemingly random readers of Culturepush. These comments were in fact, made by the same troll. The beauty of the Internet is such that while a coward may be able to hide behind his or her computer using fake names and email addresses to attack innocent parties, he or she can’t escape the fact that traces are often left behind. IP address, to cite an example.

With immediate effect, the following comments with the same principal IP address will be promptly deleted from Culturepush. Double-click on the image to view a larger piece.

And for all curious, the troll hails from Milton, QLD,  Australia. Here’s the address for all interested:


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Address: PO Box 2131
City: Milton
StateProv: QLD
PostalCode: 4064
Country: AU

Dina Razak is a visual artist who graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts in 2010. She has participated in various exhibitions in Singapore including the UOB Painting of the Year competition in 2009 where she received the Highly Commended Award. Dina specialises in mixed-media paintings with a particular interest in textured surfaces.

Dina about her work titled B Wall & Goner: “Driven by the desire to create and connect the viewer through my works, I am particularly interested in the elements of the everyday. My practice deals with exploring notions of memory and the individual’s relation to it through the process of time. Through time, objects are lost and transformed. My intention is to revive that moment in time, evoking nostalgia.”