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Tuesday, September 23, 2003


Please join us at the opening of

‘mesh’

Monday 6th October 2003
at 6:45pm

The Art Gallery
National Institute of Education
1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616

A showcase of 25 visual artists from the Australasia region that use traditional and contemporary adaptations of ‘textiles’– history, techniques, skills, materials, ideas of construction. The exhibition aims to reinvent a discussion for the medium within current contemporary art discourse, much of which leans toward new technologies and multimedia. The traditions of knitting, weaving and petty point in fact had a huge influence on the invention of the computer binary system, textiles is based on the weft and the warp, the binary appropriated this and bases itself on the naught and the one. Imagery via the computer combines its colors using pixels, not unlike the imagery of master weavers.

Exhibition will run until
Friday 31st October 2003

* a FREE BUS to the OPENING will leave from Stamford Road opposite Raffles City
at 6pm - and return - leaving NIE at 8:30pm

Gallery hours: Mon- Fri 10-5 & Sat 10-1
Enquiries: nievpa@nie.edu.sg or 6790 3557
ksdcgr@singnet.com.sg or 9618 1642


Curator: Karee Dahl Australia/Singapore
Participating artists:

Ahmad Shukri Mohamed Malaysia - pending Ann Wizer USA/Indonesia Barbie Greenshield Australia
Caroline Rika Indonesia Cassandra Shultz Australia/Singapore Claire Lim Singapore Edmond Heng Singapore Elizabeth Gower Australia Jane Gover Australia/Singapore Jewel MacKenzie Australia Kerry Zerner Australia Laura Soon Boon Ping Singapore Lee Mei Ling Singapore Lim Shing Ee Singapore Liu Liyun China
Lutz Presser Australia/Singapore Montrie Toemsombat Thailand - pending Ng Joon Kiat Singapore
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn Laos/Aust/Singapore - pending Sia Joo Hiang Singapore – pending
Sujak Rahman Singapore - pending Yuan Yaomin China Zanette Kahler Australia




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEDIA RELEASE




weft warp naught one: “mesh”

New technologies – new media art these are the ‘buzzwords’ of the 21st Century Renaissance City fuelling and funding, education, audience needs, art practice and Singapore contemporary art discourse in general.

So where does ‘traditional and contemporary art’ from the 20th Century that is still actively developing in the 21st Century fit into this picture?

Put together in response to the challenging and diverse practices of these artists, with the question of boundaries of belonging at the curatorial core “mesh” a survey exhibition of up to 25 practicing artists from the Australasia region and looking at aspects of textile practice in contemporary art making will officially open at ‘The Art Gallery’ on Monday 6th October at 6:45pm.

Before her sudden passing in 2000, the Australian textile artist Rosemary Lakerink along with two Singapore artists Juliana Yasin and Karee Dahl collaborated on a series of works shown in Singapore Nokia Art 1999 & 2001, and the current CP Open Biennale Jakarta.

She had been tracing the development of the computer binary system of one’s and naughts and its relationship to the textiles medium system of weft's and warp's. For Rosemary and many contemporary textile artists this relationship between technology and art is a long one going back to the Industrial Revolution and further. Textiles, is a rich visual and tactile medium.

In fact it could be seen as being the key player in the current wealth of new technologies and their effective usage in Arts practice – “mesh” proposes to challenge the mindset that places textile practitioners contribution outside current contemporary art discourses.

“mesh” aims to open up and encourage a dialogue and exploration of this key visual medium, to take stock of its contribution to art making and the part it plays in influencing ideas about current art practices.

Wizer and Gower, two artists from different parts of the Australian/Asian region, use their understanding of form and pattern making to analyse and comment on the world’s growing number of consumer, along with their capitalists, and corporate wasters. The works being visually seductive but talking too, about “the amount of stuff” we find necessary to make out daily life function.

Lim Shing Ee’s use of the Peranakan tile in her installation created in the shop house space of Plastique Kinetic Worms in 2002 poses the question how does contemporary art work in a space with such an existing rich traditional visual and history – the restaging of this work in the NIE gallery space continues this questioning– where does the rich Peranakan design element fit in contemporary art. Made more interesting in that this gallery siting is located within the centre of teaching practice

Claire Lim known in the Singapore art scene for her reworking of the soft toy/ gadget/ consumer trophy/ icon reflecting the ‘desires’ of the nation and its concern with material signs of wealth.

Kahler, another participating artist on hearing the news that her son was to go to Iraq with the Australian Army earlier this year literally tore up every remaining sentimental piece of fabric that connected her to her grown son, be it a shirt, sheet or baby blanket that she has stored for many years. The artist/mother then knitted the torn fabric strips into an army camouflage net that she then stretched in front of an enlarged image of her three children to protect or hide them from harm and danger.

Art particularly textiles may have run it’s tangible useful course when it handed over its binary system of the wept and the warp to the naughts and the ones of pixel town… however these practitioners, materials, techniques and traditions continue to develop and scout for ears, eyes and minds that can translate their professional visual communicative medium into constructive yet diverse developments that enhance the cultural constructs of people and societies.

Cut up shampoo bottles remade as a bear skin rug placed on the floor; bold paintings of hands on the circular stretched fabric held in place by embroidery hoops; small canvas’s exploding with a maze of beads, fabric and Chinese New Year lights; an empty grey felt blanket forming a human skin like object much like a snake would shed; pin-striped fabric suit material with the hint of power dressing on painting stretchers; rattan covered arcs rock from side to side, end to end when touched; multitudes of batik dyed cloth of all different sizes and shapes encouraging viewers to choose and to make their own clothes; photographs of a woman constructing bamboo scaffolding empowerment symbolized not by the representation of the physicality of the work being done but the red cloth head dress on the working woman; video documentation of a costume being made/spun by the silk worms as they live their natural lifespan; oil paintings of imagery conceptualised through scientific theories creating natural repetitive yet distinctively unique patterns; pattern drawings on architectural drafting paper constructed with a collage of junk mail – sale catalogues; ink on rice paper a similar soft object that also hangs in the space; canvas and paint resembling Peranakan tiles that reach for the ceiling rather than spanning the floor; the colour of money transformed into pattern on a small girls party dress….. this is the tactile and visual feast one will encounter on entering ‘The Art Gallery’ during the month of October 2003.

For interviews, information or images, contact:

Karee Dahl, kSd//cGr ART PROFILERS ksdcgr@singnet.com.sg or 9618 1642

Serene or Suharti, NTU-NIE Visual and Performing Arts nievpa@nie.edu.sg or 6790 3557


... one step further than just doing your own work...

kSd//cGr ART PROFILERS
52957290K
10B Perumal Road
Singapore 218777
Tel/fax: [65] 6299 1764
HP: [65] 9618 1642
Email: ksdcgr@singnet.com.sg




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