21 to 31 May: Dolores by Andres Barrioquinto (Utterly Art)

OUR LADY OF SORROWS
Andres Barrioquinto paints the many faces of female sadness

DOLORES is a female name from a Latin word meaning “sorrows.” It is usually applied to contexts of mental pain and suffering.

This exhibition which features the moody portraitures of Andres Barrioqunto presents a collection of different women, depicted in either a vast landscape or a lively kaleidoscopic bed of flowers.

According to the artist, the placement of his figures in such vast and remote scenery creates a certain feeling of isolation and loneliness. “I want to emphasize or somehow portray the effects of men, or maybe the backwash of life in general towards women.” Barrioquinto says.

Generally, his concepts for this art show are inspired by all the women around him, from the youngest tramp strewn across the street to his very own birth mother. This is a tribute to them, for the scars and afflictions that life has left them with.

It is highly noticeable that in this present batch of paintings, the figures somehow bleed a certain blanket of mourning for the human soul. “My paintings are usually dark and macabre, and they still are now, only in a different and more subtle sense of expression."

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Andres Barrioquinto (b. 1975, Philippines) graduated in Fine Arts (Painting) from the University of Santo Tomas in 2000. A prestigious recipient of the Thirteen Artists Award (2003) bestowed by the Cultural Centre of the Philippines, Dolores is his sixteenth solo art exhibition and fourth in Singapore. The exhibition progresses from the geometricism and detailed realism that he has been developing in the past year.

VENUE: Utterly Art Exhibition Space (diagonally opposite the Sri Mariamman Temple, Pagoda St Exit) 229A South Bridge Road (2nd Level) Singapore 058778
TEL: 6226 2605
EMAIL: utterlyart@pacific.net.sg
OPENING HOURS: Mon-Sat 12 noon - 8 pm Sun 12 noon - 5.30 pm
"Dolores" by Andres Barrioquinto ends on 31 May 2009

28 May to 20 June: "Flux Technicolour" by Ian Woo (Fortune Cookie Projects)

"Magic Mountain" by Ian Woo

Steady Flux of Talent
La Salle College lecturer paints his imaginary cinematic experience

FORTUNE Cookie Projects presents an exhibition of new work by Singaporean artist Ian Woo. His seemingly free-form improvisations belie a highly disciplined architectonic. Using pattern and colour he creates a series of imaginary worlds, landscapes and allegories that allow the viewer to make his own choices and his own discoveries.

A lecturer for Postgraduate Studies at Lasalle College of the Arts, Woo has exhibited extensively throughout Asia. His work can be found in corporate, private and institutional art collections around the world.

Artist's Statement

'The title Flux Technicolour comes from a reference to the idea of a continuous presence of fluctuating changes in both colour and forms that affects the gravity of the paintings. I think about temperature and quality of light quite a lot when applying colours to a painting.

"I also have this fascination that the painting is an imaginary light box, where structure, substance, colour co-relate to become matter. I like to pretend that the painting is like a film still from some imaginary cinematic experience.'

The Organisers

Fortune Cookie Projects, an international art advisory and curatorial firm with offices in Singapore and New York, has long been active in organising art exhibitions of major artists throughout Asia. Mary Dinaburg and Howard Rutkowski, the principals of Fortune Cookie Projects, each have over thirty years experience in the international contemporary art market.

Projects featuring prominent artists such as Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, Jorg Immendorff, A.R.
Penck, Per Kirkeby and Markus Lupertz have been realized in Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Hong Kong. Most recently Fortune Cookie Projects curated the first major retrospective of art paintings by Julian Schnabel, which traveled throughout China and Korea.

Fortune Cookie Projects has also been instrumental in curating exhibitions and securing platforms for Asian artists at institutional and commercial venues throughout the United States and Europe.

Fortune Cookie Projects is the organiser of Showcase Singapore, Southeast Asia's first international contemporary art fair, which debuted in September 2008.

Fortune Cookie Projects also curated the first exhibition of paintings by Julian Schnabel in Singapore which will travel to the National Museum of the Philippines in June 2009.

For directions:

Fortune Cookie Projects
39 Keppel Road #02-04
Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Singapore 089065
Tel. No. (65) 9382 1700

Raise $1 For Every Vote With BEIJING 101

Hair consultants gives back to Society of Physically Disabled with online voting project from 1 Oct - 15 November

SALIMAH Ishak, a client of the Society of Physically Disabled, was first diagnosed with her condition when she lost sensation in her limbs when she was 14. Since then, she has managed to regain some movement. In 2000, she joined SPD as a trainee in the Sheltered Workshop and began therapy twice a week at the SPD Rehabilitation Centre. She also received IT training.

Today, Salimah is a full-fledged web and flash animation designer, with clients like Hill and Knowlton, Tat Lee Holdings and Allianz Insurance Company.

Three of her digital artworks are being featured in BEIJING 101 Hair Consultants’s Christmas fundraising project, where people are asked to vote for their favourite digital artwork on www.beijing101hair.com/charity. BEIJING 101 contributes $1 to SPD for every unique vote that the winning artwork gathers from 1 October to 15 November.

Read more about Beijing 101's charity project.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Feel how it is to burn in the fires of hell at Chinese artist Miao Xiaochun's exhibit

BEIJING-based multidisciplinary artist Miao Xiaochun (b. 1964) will showcase new works in a solo exhibition, entitled "Miao Xiaochun: Microcosm", which opens at Osage Singapore today.

Osage is an international gallery group with major exhibition spaces in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Singapore. It represents some of the most outstanding artists in Asia and works closely with a variety of internationally respected curators, critics and art historians to present and promote exhibitions that address fundamental global issues.

In his newest work, Microcosm Chinese artist Miao Xiaochun re-imagines Hieronymus Bosch’s famous 15th century masterpiece, "The Garden of Earthly Delights".

Read more about Miao Xiaochun's art exhibit.

ART Singapore 2008

The 8th ARTSingapore is the Largest Contemporary Asian Art Fair Featuring 110 art galleries from 16 Countries

Singapore, July 29, 2008 – The most anticipated Asian contemporary art fair will be here once again to set the visual arts scene ablaze over five days from 10 13 October, 2008 at Suntec Singapore, International Convention and Exhibition Centre. About 110 art galleries from 16 countries will be showcasing US$30 million worth of artworks ranging from paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, photographs and digital art done, making this year's ARTSingapore event the biggest one to date. MF Global Singapore is ARTSingapore 2008 s presenting sponsor.

Read more about ART Singapore 2008.

Arts Exposure

Three exhibits worth checking out this NDP weekend

OSAGE: “Inside Looking Out”
THE establishment by young Hong Kong artists of studios−in the flatted factories of Chai Wan, Kwun Tong, and, in particular, Fotan in the New Territories−constitutes one of the most interesting aspects of HK’s recent contemporary art development.

It is the closest to the Western notion of the aesthete or bohemian artist working for arts sake in his garret. It is HK’s 21 st century equivalent of the bohemian artists’ colony.

At Osage Singapore, catch seven of these artists in “Inside Looking Out.” They are Ma Chihang (Film/Media Arts), Kwan Sheungchi (Multi-disciplinary Arts), Lee Kit (Painting Installation), Chow Chunfai (Painting), Pak Sheungchuen (Conceptual Art), Lam Tungpang (Painting/Mixed-media) and Doris Wong Waiyin (Mixed-media).

The exhibit’s organisers believe that, as the art world becomes more and more fragmented, the identification of artists as a member of a particular group or “school” is for many the only way of lending structure to a highly fluid range of contemporary art movements.

And that’s why they ask the question: Is there a “Fotan School” in Hong Kong?

“Inside Looking Out” at Osage Gallery (11B Mount Sophia, #01-12, Singapore 228466; tel. no. 6337 9909) opens on the evening of 8 August, and a roundtable discussion featuring the artists will be held on 9 August, from 2pm to 5pm. It runs until 5 September.

Read more for the other two art exhibits in Singapore.

Crash Course On How To Draw

Make someone's portrait in less than a minute, using either numbers or doodles
By James P. Ong

IF abstract is the closest thing you can get to producing art, then you would have been clapping your hands in glee if you were at Momentous Arts last Friday. The international artist Rene Robles, who founded the painting style called "assertionism", entertained the crowd attending the opening of his exhibit "The Art Of Making Visible" by showing us some neat tricks he's picked up in his over 40 years of being an artist.

These tricks are best for people who've never drawn anything in their entire life, or those who've always wanted to attend children's art classes but never found time to.

Learn more on how to draw.

Art In Everyday Objects

This is a chair. A what? A chair. A what? A chair. Oh, a chair!
Rene Robles gives mundane items like tables, light bulbs and chairs their 15 minutes of fame in The Art of Making Visible
By James P. Ong

ARE you familiar with the “This is a what?” parlour game? A group sits in a circle and the person who starts the game picks up any object (for example, a pen) and passes it on to the person to her right. The giver says, “This is a pen,” and the recipients says, “A what?” and the giver again explains, “A pen.”

This routine repeats two more times and then the recipient, exclaims, “Oh, a pen,” then passes on the pen to the next person to his right. At the same time, the original giver picks up a new object and passes it again to the person to his right. Pretty soon, the entire group in the circle is passing objects left and right.

The point of the game — and this lengthy introduction — is not only to test the player’s memory, but also to focus the spotlight on ordinary, everday objects: a pen, a key, a chair, a table…Which brings us to real point of this story: the art exhibit in Singapore by international artist Rene Robles, entitled The Art Of Making Visible.

Read more of Art In Everyday Objects.

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Paint The Ways

Painted like a fashion magazine spread, Ronald Caringal's works are tongue-in-cheek renditions of his own encounters with love

FORGET jewelry, flowers, chocolates...forget everything you thought that would make a sweet Valentine's Day gift. Why don't you surprise your lover with a Ronald Caringal painting instead? In the artist's first overseas exhibit (he is from Manila where he runs his own art gallery called "The Cubicle"), he rips open his heart, dips his paintbrush into the blood, and comes up with a witty, tongue-in-cheek collection that looks like they were torn from the pages of a fashion magazine.

The reference to chic and style should come naturally to Caringal, who has spent many of his nights in Manila's wild party scene; even hosting some all-nighters at his gallery, where local bands perform on the top floor of the three-storey apartment building, to the chagrin of his neighbours.

Read more of How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Paint The Ways.

Soh Ee Shaun, 26 y.o.

The man behind colour pencils and paintbrushes
By Mavis Ang

Having freelanced his way into collaborations with MTV, National Youth Council, Red Bull, and the Children’s Cancer Foundation, graphic artist Soh Ee Shaun has so much more yet to colour and doodle. 88DB presents to you the man with a sole mission: Brighten up Singapore.

Read more on Soh Ee Shaun.

Yeo Siak Goon, 50 y. o.

Former book designer and now full-time painter, this elusive talent shares some of his thoughts on the occasion of his exhibit entitled ‘The Art Of The Offering’
By Mavis Ang

SINGAPOREAN artist Yeo Siak Goon was born in 1957 in a small village in Benut, West Malaysia. At the age of 16, he headed for the bright lights of Singapore to learn watercolour painting and drawing under two local masters, Hua Chai Yong and Leo Hee Tong.

A book designer with a publishing firm, Siak Goon has nevertheless found the time to participate in innumerable shows since 1977, representing Singapore in art exhibitions in Hong Kong, Taiwan, France, USA, Malaysia, Brunei, the Netherlands, Macau, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Read more on Yeo Siak Goon.

Buy Andy Warhol Art? He Sold Out Long Ago, Baby!

What would Warhol be doing if he lived in Singapore? On the face of it, and for a whole host of reasons, one might think that he and Singapore would be a very bad match. I disagree.
By David Nugent

SO ANDY'S in town and you’re wondering whether it’s worth all the hype? You’re wondering if the man who created reality TV decades before it existed, who memorialised the concept of pop culture as true art (in as much as Toulouse Lautrec did in the 19 th century), and at whose estate auction shortly after his death brought in thousands of dollars for just one ceramic cookie jar, would be a good investment?

Stop asking stupid questions!

Read more on Buy Andy Warhol Art? He Sold Out Long Ago, Baby!