Artist and curator Guo-Liang Tan examines the abstract in Singaporean group show
By Ho See Wah

'Strange Forms of Life', exhibition view. Photo courtesy of STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, Singapore.

Artist and curator Guo-Liang Tan formulates the Singaporean group show, ‘Strange Forms of Life’ at STPI Gallery, by thinking through the interaction between abstraction and our surrounding environs. The presentation is part of the ‘Proposals for Novel Ways of Being’ initiative jointly organised by National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum, which brings together 12 art spaces to navigate this time of uncertainty. Against the backdrop of a surreal period, Tan questions what this method of perception can offer us in making sense of the world.

Beyond that, examining the abstract has been a long-standing interest of Tan, who deals with this form of expression in his own artistic practice as well. He explains, “For years, I have wanted to do a show on abstraction in a way that looks at it not just formally, but where form is something that embodies our lived realities.” In this manner, the exhibition is framed such that the artworks are not just looked upon for their formalistic qualities and techniques, but also how they speak to contemporary concerns in prismatic ways.

'Strange Forms of Life', exhibition view. Photo courtesy of STPI.

The exhibition showcases the work of 10 artists, including the late Singaporean-British artist Kim Lim whose retrospective is currently on show at Tate Britain. Her works recur throughout the three sections, ‘Natural Life, ‘Interior Life’ and ‘Temporal Life’, as guiding notes for each one. The inclusion of her works alongside contemporary pieces is also a curatorial gesture toward rethinking how such forms can constantly open up new ways of seeing. Included in the presentation are artworks from past STPI collaborators Genevieve Chua, Han Sai Por, Jane Lee and Suzann Victor, and artists Zul Mahmod, Sherman Sam, Jeremy Sharma, Ian Woo and Tan himself.

Zul Mahmod, 'Of Nature and Technology' (detail), 2019, exhibition view. Photo courtesy of STPI.

Going into the three sections, the artworks in ‘Natural Life’ take inspiration from the elemental world. An intriguing proposition is Zul Mahmod’s ‘Of Nature And Technology’ (2019). This installation sees wires elegantly lining the pieces of wood salvaged from East Coast Park, which are sitting atop an undulating shape formed by soil. The wires themselves are motion-sensored, and emit varying frequencies of sound depending on the movement around them. The abstracted sounds reanimate the wood pieces, and remind us of the multitudinous histories and stories of these once-alive objects. At the same time, the artist speculates on the relationship between technology and the environment. He says, “Most of the time, technology is seen as destroying nature, but I think there is a way in which both can coexist, and in fact, the former can help the latter to thrive.” In this way, Zul’s work creates potentialities for how we can relate to nature.

Sherman Mern Tat Sam, 'See which the wind blows', 2020, oil on panel, 19.3 x 16.7cm. © Sherman Mern Tat Sam. Photo by Todd-White Art Photography, courtesy of the Artist and STPI.

On a more personal scale is ‘Interior Life’, where the artworks presented explore the matter of being. In the case of Sherman Sam’s sequence of paintings, as with ‘See which way the wind blows’ (2020), the act of creation is incorporated into his domestic routine. They are made and remade over long periods of time, and are thus always in the process of becoming. Indeed, when looking at the vibrant series, our eyes are gently pulled in a few different directions as the various forms and mostly-pastel colours fluidly maneuver themselves over the canvases. Much like how the paintings are still subjected to change even at the moment of display, so is one’s interior life in constant motion. Despite its supposed stillness, the paintings provide a perpetual flowing of intimate reflexivity.

Genevieve Chua, ‘Seconds Accumulating on a Hundred Years’, 2017, acrylic on linen, 230 x 550cm. © Genevieve Chua. Photo courtesy of the Artist and STPI.

While the sections are helpful in conceptualising the showcase, the articulations of each thematic focus bleed into one another as well. This is clear from the ‘Temporal Life’ segment, where its overarching ideas of time and transience permeate frequently throughout ‘Strange Forms of Life’. Take for example Genevieve Chua’s ‘Seconds Accumulating on a Hundred Years’ (2017) which is located in ‘Natural Life’. The grand work depicts what appears like an actual landscape, when it is in fact a visual representation of a soundscape. This offers yet another frame of reference for navigating our lived environment as we are confronted with sound in more visceral terms.

Concurrently, golden vertical lines are patterned across the canvas as a way to find a sense of rhythm, which advances the artist’s notion of the work being about “a sense of time, or a reality of time”, as she puts it. This exercise in making sense of temporal pulses paradoxically recalls the unknowable nature of time. While we may rationalise it in a manner of our own, there can also be other schemas for engagement. Chua elaborates, “The most critical thing about abstraction is that everybody can tag something that exists in their reality to the work.” Once again, the liminal space of possibilities that abstract forms produce is evoked.

As a whole, the exhibition probes us to look at the collection of works as generative expressions of our lively surroundings. Perhaps one answer to Tan’s question of what abstraction can continue to offer is that it performs well in eliciting different modes of being beyond our anthropocentric framework. Strangeness leaks into the crevices of our lives everyday and it flourishes even as we do not give it attention. And when we care to take a less human-centric gaze, strange forms of life will start to appear everywhere.

'Strange Forms of Life' is on view from 5 December 2020 to 31 January 2021 at STPI Gallery.

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