The Not Singapore Art Project:
Migration to the Internet Country and Portable Identity. Some paintings at play: a flash solo by NG Joon Kiat
Presented by Yeo Workshop
18 May-30 June 2024
Contextual Statement
Originating coordinates:- 30 years as an artist in Singapore contributing in the ways I know how.
- Medical and travel insurance bought in Singapore.
- Painting practice shaped by the Internet.
Thoughts
It is important for my artistic identity and practice to navigate out of the increasingly centralized Singapore art scene where the key holders are getting fewer. From personal experience, I ask:
- If tastemakers in museums hold the power to control opportunity, do we have any idea what their evaluation standards for including and excluding artists are;
- If art school certificates are mistakenly valued as the only way to start a serious career as an artist;
- If art administrators and art installers are more valued than artists, with artists vulnerable to unprofessional treatment;
- If defending my dignity as an artist feels as tiring as dragging a deadweight around, and practicing art merely provides another shopping choice for power holders in the visual arts;
- If galleries have near absolute control over an artist’s career and lifeline;
What do I do? How can I continue?
Before raising my concerns with the government, I discovered the Internet country. It might help to keep my practice alive.
Exhibition statement
During the Covid lockdowns, I began to discover the Internet country. Avenues for connection, exploration, and autonomy exist there. Through online platforms, I navigate new territories without being fixed down by the confines of geography and institutions. I prioritize personal purposes and autonomy; I want my art practice to be meaningful on my terms.
The Internet—linked through cables across different countries and international seas and satellites—becomes a pathway for transcending these boundaries. “Traveling” the Internet has been shaping an identity of sorts for many of us. It could even influence presidential elections like in the US, so why not see how it can help me shape an artistic identity? It might be a way out of a physical, geographical frame, and the constraints imposed by art key holders.
In my travels, I explore ways to exist beyond established structures. I have to re-evaluate pigeon-holed definitions created by institutions of what a contemporary art practice worthy of attention is and simply focus on doing what I do. The contemporary art world is complex yet narrow and constrictive, even toxic. I like fewer structures and hierarchies. As much as possible, I want my art practice to circumvent barriers thrown up by curators, museums, galleries, villager egos, racism, language etc.
Through the Internet passport, I travel virtual and physical landscapes. I do what I know how to best, that is to paint. I pack some painting techniques and ideas and concerns from my past, and I see how these work in the new country I am going to. I explore the idea of painting on-site in mental exile.
Google Maps is one of my best friends. It is an ally, my compass, guiding my journeys alongside an array of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, search engines, YouTube, etc. And so, my new pursuit begins, both virtually and physically.
The Internet gives me suggestions for physical routes. As I explore the world, I find fewer barriers. I meet audiences who engage with my works-in-progress, some even become my friends. I met a French cook who wanted to pass me her secret recipe! Isn’t this what art and living are all about?
This exhibition has been quickly put together while the works took quite a few years to prepare. My paintings have become lightweight and portable. The world is dynamic and changeable; I want to shed my burdens and become porous to find new spaces for practice.
Surgery, Zombie Abstraction, and Covid series (2020)
Life is such; I began this forced career-migration initiative during the Covid lockdowns. I have had more time to think. I made some works around how surgical removal in medicine shares a vein with ideas of reduction in abstract painting, and how the Internet has become a space of key influence and resource, allowing me the freedom to build painting ideas the way I wish.
Patchwork identity series (2021)
I recalled a friend named David saying that in the Middle Ages, people were often not defined by nationality but by where they traveled, because they shared the knowledge and information they learned from their travels with people they met. So, traveling was their identity.
Individual identities are always a mix of all sorts of differences and varieties that are patched together somewhat. From the internet, books, and anywhere.
We are all patchworks. Who isn’t?
Painting techniques on the go: observations from internet sites and physical sites. Screw those stupid white frames along the way. (2021-2022)
Through the internet passport, I engage in mental and physical travels. I do what I know how to best, that is to paint. I explored the idea of painting on-site through internet sites and physical sites with the intention of shaping a painting practice in mental exile. This included visiting traveller-friendly spaces like hotels; popular internet sites that shape social influences; property developments; news sites; as well as devising on-site watercolour painting techniques to capture the fleeing moments in an information-overloaded Internet country. Essentially, I’m questioning how to shape a consciousness of an Internet identity in these painting.
Might as well screw those stupid white frames along the way, goodbye zombie formalism.
Looking at the South China Sea. The Sea has No Country (2023)
I prayed about what was next and felt led to look at the seas. The forces of nature know no borders. They do what they want. It rains one minute, and the sun shines the next. The wind sweeps and overturns what it wishes. No country can own the weather, so why claim the seas?
Looking at the South China Sea is based on a few trips to the coasts of the South China Sea. I searched for places facing this hotbed of contestation and observed the dynamics of nature. Painted on the spot, the works are tinged with the smell of sea salt and adventure. At times, I was trapped in remote locations; other times, sandflies party on my legs while I chased the seas along beaches.
Exhibition views
