Maria Farrar, Biscuits, 2026, Pastel on paper, 30.5 x 40.6 cm ©Maria Farrar, Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts Singapore/ Shanghai/ Tokyo
“Milk” is a solo exhibition by Maria Farrar. This exhibition brings together 9 new paintings and 4 works on paper, which reflect significant developments in Farrar’s practice following her last solo presentation, Girls being girls, at Ota Fine Arts Shanghai in 2023. A further iteration of this exhibition is scheduled to travel to Ota Fine Arts Shanghai later this year.
In contrast to the paintings from her previous presentation which looked at ‘girlhood’ as a social and linguistic construct, Farrar’s new body of works turn inward. Here, the artist takes the Seven Deadly Sins as her point of departure; she approaches them not as moral categories but as presences that exist within her as independent creatures. Often dismissed and ignored, what they crave is communication, and the paintings become records of Farrar’s encounters and dialogues with them.
The exhibition title “Milk” brings to mind ideas of care and a form of emotional sustenance. It reflects how the artist approaches these inner presences – not through suppression or judgment, but through attention and reciprocity. This sensibility extends into Farrar’s visual language which draws on early Christian language as a framework to give form to diffuse emotional states. Her new body of work also introduces iconographic elements that recall Renaissance painting, including the Madonna and Child and armored figures, reconfigured as allegorical expressions of her inner life.
Venue: Ota Fine Arts, 7 Lock Road, #02-13 Gillman Barracks, Singapore
When: 16 May - 4 Jul 2026,
By: Ota Fine Arts
