People And Places

Eko Nugroho’s It’s All About Coalition is typical of the artist’s signature style which is heavily influenced by popular and comic culture featuring strange, hybrid characters. Two figures approach each other, seemingly to offer friendship or peace by means of the universal gesture of a handshake. However, the outstretched hand of one character has taken the form of the head of a wolf, its jaws open and ready to snap off the other party’s extended hand.

The other party is not defenceless either – his other hand, resting by his side, has taken the shape of pincers or claws, ready to retaliate. Both figures are caught in a moment of tension and anticipation – will they attack in mutual distrust, or will there be true coalition between them? What do you think each of the figures is thinking at this point of time?

Drawing on his familiarity with the cartoons and comic books that populated his childhood, Eko Nugroho’s Illusion illustrates a scene of “crispy crisis” where the environment is depleted of its greenery by monster-like machines in his signature comic-graphics style. With the absence of living forms, what’s left of the sterile landscape is a harsh, jagged terrain, exposed to the dangers of over-heating and “crisping” up as a result of environmental destruction.

The hooded figure – who resembles an astronaut, a common "hero" or wish fulfilment in boys’ comics and cartoons – represents the artist’s aversion of depicting stereotypical face-types that could lead to discriminatory thoughts or interpretations of his work, while at the same time, adding a sense of ominous foreboding about the state of the environment depicted here.

Yuree Kensaku created The Killer From Electricity Authority after witnessing staff from the electricity authority cut down trees growing above the power lines outside her house.

With this work, Yuree Kensaku contemplates the future of the world for the younger generation by addressing the issue of climate change.

Does Yuree Kensaku’s choice of materials affect the way you feel about this work? What if she had simply painted how she felt on canvas instead of using found, discarded objects like a wooden window frame and a plastic blind?

In examining the impact of capitalism in today’s society, on its people and on traditional values, artist Justin Lee playfully blends traditional Eastern iconography with modern-day symbols of our global capitalist culture.

Can you think of any traditional values that are in danger of disappearing in today’s modern society?

Frankie Callaghan explores the nocturnal world of urban Manila in these photographs of buildings and structures that would otherwise appear familiar and unremarkable in the daytime.

The winner of the Voter’s Prize award at the Singapore Art Show 2009, Self-Portrait (No More Tears Mr. Lee) is made out of 8,000 plastic shampoo bottle caps placed individually on an angled pedestal. Using a combination of opened and closed bottle caps placed in a fixed formation on a grid format, the portrait of a person is created when the bottle caps are lit and seen from a certain angle.

In doing so, Jason Wee reinvents the genre of portraiture by deconstructing the subject into its individual parts, making each bottle cap function as a pixel forming a larger image.

The title of this work, Jembar Negarane, Cupet Pikirane, is a Javanese phrase that loosely translates to Big Country, Narrow Mindset in English. It consists of three panels depicting part-man, part-machine characters in a seemingly apocalyptic scene of chaos and terror, with dismembered limbs lying around and a riotous mob threatening to take control. The sense of violence and hostility is further emphasised by the sharp tools and aggressive behaviour of the characters presented in the work.

The title of this work is therefore both critique as well as advice, a reminder to humankind to avoid cannibalising or preying on each other, as illustrated through Eko Nugroho’s rendition of robots and monsters.