A Lesson Beyond the Classroom Walls

Arts | Written By, NOW!Singapore | February 29th, 2016

Ten graduates from LASALLE’s class of 2015 take centre stage in an ambitious new initiative by the art college, titled Art Moves. Curated by Dr. S. Chandrasekaran, Art Moves takes on the format of a travelling exhibition with a total of 50 artworks rotated among three cafes owned by co-presenter The Connoisseur Concerto (TCC).

New works will be exhibited in The Gallery, on Circular Road at Boat Quay, while artworks at TCC Raffles Xchange will rotate with those at The Pier@Robertson.
Apart from being a mentor to his students, Dr. Chandrasekaran is also the founder of performing arts company, Arts Fission, and the artist behind the tribal-esque works that line the walls of Little India MRT station. Assisting Dr. Chandrasekaran with curating the works are Felicia Loi and Tong Shi Hui.

Loi is a multi-disciplinary practitioner with a background in both fine arts and fashion design. In this exhibition, she has showcased an impressive range of mediums through several series. Although each series was done with different mediums, there is a single conversation or idea threading throughout the pieces. Loi describes her work as striving to reflect the simple yet overlooked essence of human existence within a fast-paced society.

There is sense of playfulness to Tong’s works that comes out in the way she curates a picture. In “Hao Re Ah! #1,” Tong captures a cheeky scene of a pineapple swimming pool for Lilliputians. The purposeful use of a more expressive mandarin phrase for ‘very hot’ adds a cheeky factor to the work. As an artist, Tong is interested in the human anatomy, the construction of cultural identities and the impact that it has on the physical body. As an Assistant Curator, Tong hopes to encourage the sale of emerging artists’ work, with the artists learning from the exposure and the public response to their artwork.

The exhibition features a number of emerging artists working with different mediums. These include digital artist Asanul Nazryn, whose work explores social identity through a light-hearted tone and painter Cai Pei Xuan, who explores the topic of daily life and its quirks. Ceramist Kathlyn Loke explores a discourse on value and worth in her work; Lau Yiling studies colour through a series of found objects and nostalgia, while Amanda Lim interprets current political, social and cultural issues in her work.

Digital artist Ong Lijie’s work is lined with narratives in which the notion of body is a tool to depict the consequences of relations between the individual and the collective other. The making of her works seeks to translate a disoriented reality in the combination of various printmaking and drawing elements.
Painter Naufal Abshar (see following story) uses humour in his ‘HAHA’ series, where he criticises politics and gaps in society. His work is an exploration of laughter, which he believes can both start or diffuse an issue. Finally, the exhibition includes the work of India’s top supermodel-turned artist Tinu Verghis, whose performance art ‘Under My Skin,’ makes an appearance in print form.
Most of the work in the exhibition is priced between $100 to $1,000, with some larger pieces going for up to $3,000.