An online exhibition of new artworks by Bjorn Lee Varella
View online at https://www.bjornleevarella.com/the-covid-19-cycle/
“The COVID-19 Cycle” brings together three new bodies of work made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: A series of drawings which gives the online exhibition its name, a series of cut canvases titled “Silent Treatment”, and an album of ambient soundscapes and other sonic curiosities titled “Bach Groan Static Sticks (the album formally known as ‘Background Statistics’)”.
A landmark series of works responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, “The COVID-19 Cycle” is an expansive fantasia unfurling across 14 charcoal drawings on paper with pastel and graphite additions. An explosion of prophetic symbols drawn from post-COVID living, images culled from the international and local media news cycle, surreal interludes of individual psychological reverie and told through diaristic text fragments and enigmatic schoolyard scrawls, the cycle marks a further development of the artist’s distinctive drawing style characterised by its collage aesthetic and sensuous, expressive mark-making.
The 14 drawings allude to the 14-day incubation period of the virus, even as time itself eludes linear arrest within the series’ helter-skelter progression. Each panel is anchored by a self portrait of some kind, and loosely chronicles the artist’s journey back to Singapore from his studies abroad, his stint in isolation on Stay Home Notice, and subsequent shelter-in-place with family.
Supported by National Arts Council Singapore through its Digital Presentation Grant.
When: 31 Mar - 31 Dec 2021,
By: n/a