Wilfred Lim, Adele Chan, Venus Oh and Kimberly Kiong in Singapore
By Danisha Liang

Kimberly Kiong, ‘Gleamings’ series. 2021, latex ink on polyester fabric. Image courtesy of the artist.

Held at ArtScience Museum, ‘Painting with Light’ is a photography exhibition featuring four local photographers’ experimentation with the camera on OPPO’s newly launched smartphone, the Find X3 Pro. Playing with light, Wilfred Lim, Adele Chan, Kimberly Kiong and Venus Oh explore what it means to see Singapore in full colour.

The exhibition opens with Lim’s ‘Garden City’ series, and continues with Chan’s ‘Food for Thought’, followed by ‘Lumina’ by Oh’s and finally ending with Kimberly Kiong’s ‘Gleamings’. Speaking about his concept for the exhibition, curator Ben Yap says, “The temperature of the lights for each series changes gradually as you move through the space – from coolest to warmest – subtly guiding the flow of the exhibition, very much akin to the hues from night to day, and I wanted the visitors to leave the exhibition space with a warm feeling.”

Exhibition view of ‘Painting with Light’ (2021). Image courtesy of ArtScience Museum.

Walking into the main exhibition space, my eyes are immediately drawn to a small printed photograph by Lim. Featuring a unique composition of local flowers foraged from his neighbourhood, such as the mimosa, creeping daisy and wishbone flower, the playful colour palette aptly illustrates tropical life. In his practice, Lim takes inspiration from classical paintings and focuses on creating carefully staged compositions, such as the ones seen in the ‘Garden City’ series, which put front and centre the beauty we often overlook in our immediate environs.

Wilfred Lim, ‘Garden City’ series, 2021, print MOAB lasal photo matte paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

Shot in his makeshift studio, photographs in this series are a continuation of ‘State of Solitary’ (2020) which was also presented at the ArtScience Museum. ‘Garden City’ seeks to show the life cycle of Singaporean plants. Sandwiched between brightly coloured creations, a single dark photograph stands out. It is composed of tree branches and leaves, with a dried seed pod set against a navy blue backdrop. Lim explains that this particular piece represents the eventual end that all life will come to before renewing again.

Adele Chan, ‘Food for Thought’ series, 2021, glass photo paper on acrylic. Image courtesy of the artist.

Lim’s focus on Singapore’s flowers is echoed in Adele Chan’s close study on food, a departure from her usual portraiture-based work. Looking up close at the red grouper or the mud crab, we are reminded that beauty can be found in the unlikeliest of places if only we know to take a pause to appreciate it. The photographer, who is also the Editor-In-Chief at NYLON Singapore, uses her keen eye to explore photography different from her usual portraiture-based work.

About her choice of subject for these photographs, Chan, who is also the Editor-in-Chief at NYLON Singapore, talks about how food is a unifying element for Singaporeans. She says, “It's the ingredients that make us all the same”. The shots, taken with the microscope function of the OPPO Find X3 Pro smartphone, focus the viewer’s attention on details they might otherwise miss.

While Lim and Chan’s work focus on the objects in our surroundings, Kimberly Kiong’s work puts human relationships front and centre. ‘Gleamings’ is an introspective series where Kiong, who is an art therapist in training, features her friends each cradling an item they hold close to their hearts. Her use of a prism cuts through the light and models, presenting a fractal view of the models’ emotions, frozen in time on a sunny day.

These tender images encapsulate the relationship shared between her human subjects and their innermost facets, creating a more intimate space in the exhibition. Kiong says “I hope viewers will be able to reflect on their own precious possessions, be it material or immaterial, and find an anchor within these things that help preserve an unbudging tenderness of their humanity.” The hazy, dream-like photographs are printed on polyester fabric, layering another dimension of warmth onto the personal portraits, and I find myself pondering the significance of things that I hold dear.

Venus Oh, ‘Lumina’ series, 2021, print on MOAB lasal photo matte paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

In the same way, Venus Oh’s ‘Lumina’ series of portraits examines the lives of Singaporean people in isolation. Oh successfully captures her subjects in their natural environment, and transports us to moments in time and space where only her subjects exist. Departing from her usual fashion-focused work, Oh invites visitors to look towards their own states of mind through the vulnerability that ‘Lumina’ demonstrates. In a particularly striking image, a flower seller is shrouded in smoke, and we see him interacting with his customer framed by the flower garlands he has made. This balanced juxtaposition invites me to pause and rethink what isolation can look -- and feel -- like. Oh, who is a filmmaker, has made the series come alive with a non-narrative video that brings to life the cityscape at night. Shot over the course of a single night, Oh’s unending video playing on loop intensifies the sense of solitude that comes through in her still photographs.

“Shot over the course of a single night, Oh’s unending video playing on loop intensifies the sense of solitude that comes through in her still photographs.”

Painting with Light’ takes on a life of its own with each photographer’s individual lens. Under the individual artist’s description is a QR code that allows visitors to access a filter, which mimics the colour and lighting of each of the photographers, and I was able to further immerse myself in Singapore as each photographer saw it. I leave the exhibition feeling contemplative about and inspired by the stories that the photographers have made come alive through their evocative images.

‘Painting with Light’ will be on display at ArtScience Museum from 10 April to 16 May 2021. The exhibition is part of OPPO’s #AwakenColour Campaign, with the launch of the OPPO Find X3 Pro. All photographs and moving images were shot with the built-in camera on the smartphone.

OPPO, in collaboration with art community group ARTCADE, is putting six selected photographs by Wilfred Lim and Venus Oh from the 'Painting with Light' exhibition up for auction. The auction will be open to the public and each photograph will be auctioned off on ARTCADE's Instagram stories from 19 May till 30 May 2021. Interested parties will have 24 hours to place their bids, starting at SGD240 each.