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(H) 60cm X (B) 50cm
Year 2008
Artist's Inspiration:
This is a portrait intuited by admiration for the man’s obdurate faith in his ability to triumph over seemingly insurmountable obstacles and his indefatigable ardor for victory in every challenge that his ego condescends to take up. I especially like the power of the hand gesture that seems to acknowledge another but demands obeisance and recognition of his own superiority.
(H) 60cm x (B) 50cm
Year 2008
Artist's Inspiration: This portrait is inspired by adoration for the subject’s unyielding determination to seek revenge on the society that brought about the collapse of his once ordinary familial life. The portrait aims to capture the menacing quality of tenacity and cunning grit in the persona that nourish the insatiable thirst for justice to be restored.
The idea of portraiture has changed for modern man for he has come to realise that he is no longer in ownership of his image, that his appearance is a perceived phenomenon that is distorted by social devices such as convenient stereotyping and personal opinions formed of conflated memory and documentary fact. Man's appearance has become a blended brew of image associations that arise out of reactions to his presence.
Acknowledging this would give the artist greater freedom and license to freely interpret his experience and knowledge of the sitter via more innovative artifices.
These are indeed exciting times to re-explore the human form and expression in portraiture....
Born in 1979, Singaporean
In retrospection, I would like to think that my formative years as an artist date back to my childhood days.
I would venture to assert that my puerile self amusement with toy figurines probably developed sensitivity toward sculptural forms and dramatic postures, and regular indulgence in the rich visual imagery of cartoons suggested the possibility of an alternate reality to me. In moments of privacy, I would lapse into playful impersonations of screen heroes and also draw inspiration and courage from histrionics to approach life’s problems. “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life” as Oscar Wilde once postulated, became my gospel.
Unfortunately, these proclivities hibernated when the practical demands of adult life took over and my undernourished soul held captive by the lethargy of daily grind. It was only two years ago that a serendipitous encounter with some fine works of human portraits when I felt something awakened within. An incomprehensible but deeply palpable sense of affinity for the human form intensified as I became obsessed with rendering the facial planes and figurative contours in two dimensions, seeking to recreate and distill the sensations and emotions aroused in me from the parallel reality of fallen heroes in Japanese Anime and tortured protagonists in Greek tragedy. This conviction for the human form impressed upon me the urgency of my vocation as an artist to be a conduit for the expression of the invisible pulses and rhythm of life.
To extend my visual vocabulary to better articulate such visceral sensibilities, I took up an introductory course in drawing at “myartspace” studio in October 2007 and moved onto painting exploration classes in April 2008, and currently experiment with various idioms of expressing the human condition. Reading art history and voracious browsing of various artists’ works either through printed reproductions or gallery exhibits supplement my self- study.
I aspire to progress from a mere Sunday painter to a full fledged artist and it is my ambition that eventually, my oeuvre would be able to succinctly portray the mystery of the ineffable human condition and rejuvenate Man’s interest in himself as a phenomenon.
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