Mike HJ Chang, In the Park (I), 2018, pencil and watercolour on paper, 56 x 71 cm
The Body and the Seed brings together the work of Mike HJ Chang and Edward Clydesdale Thomson. With bright hues and hints of play, the gallery presents work that considers the body’s orientation within space and the landscape. The human body is interpreted through forms and perspectives that are unconventional, uncanny or even tangential. Painting and wallpaper provide the limbs, movements and angles through which a fresh conception of the human body can be glimpsed.
Mike HJ Chang’s striking new series of watercolour paintings on paper press the body into jarring corners and colours, as it navigates the interstices between recognisable, urban Singapore (the MRT, the bus, the bicycles) and the more abstract dimensions of a dream. Clashing lines lead into each other, according to an asynchronous rhythm. Cartoons and mismatched contours end in tragic, difficult and awkward points. Thus, Chang pushes the limit of optical comfort, challenging and disorienting the viewer as much as he does the fictional body in his own imaginary spaces.
Edward Clydesdale Thomson’s ‘dead-standing, bark-peeled, clear-cut, windthrow, lumber, pulp’ Pattern 4 wallpaper extends a small format to the large-scale of an entire wall. A simple industrial potting tray used to sprout seedling pines in a factory was central in creating the mono-print patterns on the wallpaper. Through this unassuming article and a very elementary printing technique, Thomson succeeds in critically examining the march of modernisation as it overcomes the human body (the factory worker) and the landscape (deforestation).
Performances choreographed by Susan Sentler with dancers Valerie Lim and Shaun Lim from LASALLE College of the Arts: Friday, 25 May, 6-9PM and Saturday, 26 May, 4-7PM
Venue: Yeo Workshop, 1 Lock Road, #01-01, Singapore 108932
Opening Hours: Tue to Sat 11am–7pm
Sun 12pm-6pm
Closed on Mondays & Public Holidays
When: 28 Apr - 27 May 2018,
By: Yeo Workshop
