In the wake of contemporary art’s tendency towards mixed media, and ongoing attempts to decolonise art history, questions about how to paint, what to paint, or why even paint, remain provocative. For Ng Joon Kiat, the language of abstraction, coming with its particular historical burdens, continues to be fecund and teeming with possibilities. All the different works in this exhibition are propelled by the desire to reveal, carve out, and push for solutions in painting. This solo exhibition features five groups of work developed over five years that investigate into the language of abstraction and search for ways forwards in painting. They comprise the sections Cosmeticised Corpse Paintings, Autopsied Paintings, Painting Vocabularies Plastic Remains and Numerical Drawings.

Ng’s new works both differ and extend from his earlier solo exhibitions of abstract paintings that take on Singapore’s physical and cultural landscapes as their subject matter. Ng designates these groups of work to have emerged from an “imagined post-country”, signalling their concern to communicate issues in painting of broader application. Rather than further particularising painting as a strategy, they mobilise histories and contexts that are transnational in scale in order to decentre discourses and pursue prospects in painting.

Artist:
Ng Joon Kiat

Curator:
Isabel Ching