Following her gut to become an arts impresario as well

FOR years now, the Spa Esprit Group's Cynthia Chua has been a powerhouse of things lifestyle in Singapore - starting with wellness and beauty, and expanding into restaurants and cafes. Now, she wants to move into the arts in a big way, setting aside S$100,000 a year to support emerging artists and also build up the company's art collection.

While her group has ventured into the arts in the past - and arguably many of its events have an artistic bent - it will now put aside that specific sum to curate young artists.

"We hope to put together a House museum, eventually. We're looking at local artists and also artists whom we meet along the way when we travel," says Ms Chua, in an email interview from New York.

"We've curated many different lifestyle concepts, picking up artists or artwork along the way. It could be something that captures our eyes, or the sensitivity of the artists, a new technique, or the subject that they are exploring that interests us," she adds.

Different spaces also pique, she says, as she's constantly on the lookout for unconventional gallery spaces that will complement the art pieces or are relevant to the theme and subject. "We don't want conventional gallery spaces," she stresses.

While Ms Chua has worked with artists - with an adopt-an-artist programme in 2008, for example - she's venturing even more formally into the arts impresario field, and will collaborate with a celebrated Paris bookstore for a photo exhibition this month.

Ms Chua has partnered Ofr to put on a one-day photo exhibition here titled Helmut Newton and the New Poetes. Ofr is touted to be one of the best bookshops in Paris for fashion and design, with an art gallery of its own.

The three-man show will feature the late celebrated fashion photographer Helmut Newton's portraits, and also photo prints of two French photographers, Thomas Jorion and David Ledoux.

Newton's prints will be the focus - 18 of them, taken in the years 1964-67 - while Jorion's work features dilapidated buildings, and Ledoux's features fantasyscapes.

Here's a historical nugget: Newton - the celebrated German-Australian photographer for Vogue known for pushing photographs towards the sexual - actually worked as a photographer for The Straits Times in 1938, purportedly for a short two weeks. He had fled Nazi Germany by boat, and had intended to go to China. But he took a long port leave in Singapore instead. He later went to Australia, and it was there that he took his first Vogue assignment. The rest is image history, as Newton went on to infuse fashion photography with sex and theatre.

Asked what propelled her towards the arts, Ms Chua says her artist brother was a definite influence. Then, when there was the danger of the Dragon Kiln in Singapore being closed down, she met ceramicist Steven Low and commissioned him to make a series of large sculptures based on the theme of propolis.

"I've always been looking for interesting events that allowed me to interact with different people from the creative fields. Our lifestyle business is surrounded by creativity - from business concepts to marketing campaigns, to the product development," she says.

Her lifestyle businesses allow her to explore different artists in different disciplines, she adds. But most of all, her involvement in the arts grows out of her personal passion and interest in it.

"It's not about corporate social responsibility as much as it's something close to my heart. I love the energy and vibrancy of the youth and the creative community and feel that the company could be used as a platform for that.

"Art is beautiful when it speaks to you and it is personal. It's not part of the 'business' for us, and it's another way of nurturing our interests and discovering talents that may in turn inspire other creatives in the same field," she points out.

The cross-pollination among different cultures spurs her, she adds, and she finds it interesting to discover different artists and be influenced by them, or in the way the group's creativity is expressed.

"We will continue to put up different exhibitions in places that we discover and we will continue to explore different formats. There's no formula, no rules. I just do what I love, and will follow my gut and what I see as beautiful!" she declares.

The exhibition is on for one day only, on Sept 20, from 11am-8pm, at 11 Yong Siak Street, Tiong Bahru. The photos might thereafter be displayed at Common Man Coffee Roasters at 22 Martin Road for a month