Save Our Souls! Two of Singapore’s irrepressible young artistic talents are combining to unleash their latest output on an unsuspecting public! kAI LAM and Jeremy Hiah, both former classmates, active members of The Artists Village and longtime artistic friends, will be launching their Sell-Out Show (and so we all hope it will be!) to display Jeremy’s fascinating interactive paintings and kAI’s wry look at globalization with his installation of portraits dressed as clowns.
Jeremy Hiah’s latest paintings take their inspiration directly from life in the 15th century! From his readings in art history, Jeremy was acquainted with the work of quirky Flemish master Hieronymous Bosch who painted surrealistic fantasies in the late 1400s. The painting Ship of Fools which hangs in the Musee du Louvre in Paris is the illustrious progenitor of Jeremy’s Transportation of Fools series. As in the original, Jeremy’s paintings are populated with earthy, offbeat characters engaged in trivial pursuits and dalliances. Unlike museum masterpieces, Jeremy has designed his paintings to be interactive. The audience is required to press buttons and twiddle switches in order to experience the full import of the works, which have built-in mechanisms for movement, light and noise generation in order to delight and amuse.
kAI LAM Hoi Lit intends to illustrate an increasingly intertwined and interdependent world through a network of the images of politicians, disguised as clowns but with hints of national dress. Global statesmen, derived from drawing, collage, and photographs but rendered colourfully unrecognizable, will be arrayed on the wall or on wooden panels in the gallery. The portraits will be arranged in suggestive juxtapositions, linked with a web of lines, as if in a surrogate family tree from a travelling circus act, and text derived from the acronym S.O.S., such as Short Of Serviettes, Savoury Ostrich Steak or Smelly Old Socks, in nonsensical commentary. The humour allows reflective contemplation of sombre world events, yet allows encouragement over the positive aspects of globalization.
Sponsored by: LASALLE-SIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS alumni
S.O.S.
Children, can you hear me? Local artists Kai Lam and Jeremy Hiah have
collaborated to produce a wonderfully cheeky and intelligent adult
playground by way of interactive art, performance and installation. Very
rarely do gallery-goers have a chance to fiddle with the work on display
without leaving curators in fits of panic, but Lam’s quirky paintings, which
are inspired by the work of the eccentric and surrealist Flemish master
Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516), are equipped with little buttons and switches
that encourage you to twiddle to experience changes in movement, light and
noise. Kai, on the other hand, presents a witty and satirical take on
globalisation through an installation of politician’s portraits. Arranging
the global faces in suggestive juxtapositions, he links them with a web of
lines to suggest imaginary relationships and uses text derived from the
acronym S.O.S, such as Slave of Sobreity (Josef Estrada?) and Smelly Old
Socks (I’m guessing Yasser Arafat) to illustrate our increasingly
interdependent world. Have some fun at Utterly Art between July 11 and 28
(208 South Bridge Rd #02-01, Tel: 6226 2605)