Taking risks with new artists

MIKE AND LOU SAMSON

Both 43, Singapore PRs originally from the Philippines

He's a regional head of a bank, she runs an events firm

THEY started collecting art in 2000 when they had just moved to Singapore from the Philippines. At the time, they picked mainly colourful, pleasant-looking artworks with little historical or artistic value.

The turning point came in 2003 when they discovered an emerging group of Filipino artists who were creating art totally unlike what had been produced before in their country. "The paintings were figurative but austere, photographic-looking but were not photographs. They dealt with dark, urban themes like anonymity, displacement, dislocation - themes that frankly connected with us because we were expatriates in Singapore and we had both spent a few years studying in American universities before moving here," says Mike Samson, one half of the collector couple. "The Philippines is a Catholic country," adds his wife Lourdes, or Lou for sho…