Five great shows at Gillman Barracks

HAVE you been to Gillman Barracks lately? The current crop of shows at the gallery cluster is impressive, with some of Singapore’s best established and emerging artists pulling out the stops to deliver something special during the country’s birthday month. Many of the shows have only just opened and will run into the first week of September at least.

If you’re not sure where to begin, we suggest starting your journey at Blk 47 Malan Road with Richard Koh Fine Art where 7 local artists are showing 3 to 4 works each. They range from the geometric beauty of Ash Ghazali’s folded fabrics to the artfully chaotic collages of Ivan David Ng, from the quietly potent sculptures of Faris Nakamura to the melancholic minimalism of Lin Mengju’s paintings. 

Newcomer Samuel Xun displays sass with his wall sculptures made out of glitter ribbons expressing queer identity explorations, while Hu Qiren cleverly skewers contemporary art by turning ubiquitous items of the pandemic (such as face masks and fan filters) into minimalist artworks. The most established of the 7 artists, Melissa Tan, has 3 works that continue her in-depth exploration into mythological goddesses, and all 3 have been snapped up.

Next door at Yeo Workshop, Wong Lip Chin joyfully celebrates pastiche by fusing pop culture with classical Chinese art. In his paintings, contemporary cartoon iconography pops up around ancient-looking characters and scenarios, simultaneously poking fun of and paying homage to centuries-old traditions. Wong has even peppered the gallery space with antique-looking artefacts to negotiate the past with the present.

(Up the road at Blk 37, if you’re lucky, the 3 Singapore artists doing their NTU CCA residencies – Hilmi Johandi, Priyageetha Dia and Fazleen Karlan – might be working in their studios and, if you ask nicely, might even agree to give you a brief introduction to their practices. If not, move on to Lock Road for the remaining galleries.)

On Lock Road, Sundaram Tagore Gallery is currently hosting a sensational exhibition of its star Singapore artist Jane Lee. Lee continues her exploration of paint as a medium, applying thick creamy layers of mostly blue and white paint on fibreglass, so much so that the results look almost good enough to eat. The paint swirls, curls and collides, giving a crackling and shimmering appearance that draws attention to its material essence. It’s pure sensation.

A few steps downhill takes you to FOST, which is also hosting a group show. The highlights here include Ian Woo’s large meditative abstract painting, Grace Tan’s brash industrial sculptures, and Zen Teh and Wyn-Lyn Tan’s sublime landscape art executed on shiny brass. 

Finally, a short walk towards the end of Lock Road takes you to Mizuma Gallery at Blk 22 for another excellent group show, this one dealing with our complex relationship with the environment. Robert Zhao Renhui has created a dour triptych-in-a-cabinet showing real images of Singapore’s landscape taken from the distant and recent past, in which humans have acted less than responsibly towards the natural environment. Ang Song Nian has an extraordinary photograph showing a lush forest in Singapore which stops growing past a certain point because of the application of weed-killing chemicals.

Most memorable of all is Marvin Tang’s series of blurry orchid photographs. In 1981, the Singapore government selected the Vanda Miss Joaquim to be Singapore’s national flower out of the 40 orchids that were considered. Tang has used AI technology to generate 39 hybrid orchids which he imagines to be the rejected ones, as a kind of paean for the also-rans.

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As Singapore marks its 57th birthday, the shows ask us to pause and consider our relationship with the country’s natural environment, which has largely been cleared, destroyed, tamed, controlled or genetically modified in the name of progress.