The Light Beyond

Melisa Teo, Zen

Editor-turned-photographer, Melisa Teo, will exhibit 25 photographic images in The Light Beyond exhibition at The Arts House from 27 May to 19 June. Presented by The Arts House, this visual showcase is the result of Teo’s imaginative interpretation of light.

Leaving behind a successful publishing career in 2008, Teo established herself as a globetrotting photographer with her camera as a constant companion. She considers the camera her third eye and shoots with her intuition. She moves as her subject moves – these movements, choreographed by her instinct, coax the mundane into a glowing mosaic of symbols and colours.

Lee Chor Lin, Chief Executive Officer of Arts House Limited, says, “The Arts House seeks out artists and emerging ones who are true to their craft and constantly re-defining their art. Melisa Teo demonstrates with her highly-charged images that she is fearless about breaking rules to forge her own style and identity. It is an exciting installation to inaugurate the new gallery space, which, like all other spaces of the Arts House, is embedded with history but is ready to embrace the future and the unknown.”

Light is vital to the photographer, more so to Teo with her unique style of shooting which produces an unexpected tableaux of the familiar. Her images are never absolute renderings of life or the environment. They challenge viewers to perceive beyond the conventions. The energy and narrative within each captured moment is alive in all of Teo’s pictures.

Teo’s previous work, Light From Within (2012), was a search for self as she journeyed through the spiritual worlds of Buddhism, Hinduism and Santeria. In this new body of work, Teo looks for magic in the mundane in her pilgrimage to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, France, Israel, Morocco and Taiwan.