Image courtesy of Wardah Mohamad
Fyerool Darma's object and material experimentations are based on an extensive visual vocabulary drawn from popular culture, literature, the archives, the Internet and the artist's own life.
Fyerool Darma integrates sound, video, new media, sculpture, texts and craft practices into his object and material experimentations, which juxtapose the aesthetics and ideology of modernism alongside Southeast Asian cultures, histories, aesthetics, and politics. Formally trained as a painter, he has gradually developed a complex visual vocabulary that draws from a diverse range of accessible sources. He utilises generative tools, manual labour, hearsay and auto fiction to weave the intersections of art, technology, science, and society. He continues to live and work in Singapore, where he divides his time teaching art to youths at a non-profit organisation situated in Jurong, and attending to his family and caring for Pipi, their reptilian housemate.
Darma’s works have been exhibited internationally at Centre of Heritage Art and Textiles (CHAT) Mill 6 Foundation, Hong Kong (2024); Lagos Biennale 2024, Nigeria; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai (2024); Museum of Modern Art MMCA Seoul (2023-24); La Trobe Institute of Art, Melbourne (2023); Seoul MediaCity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art (2023); Singapore Art Museum (2023, 2016); National Gallery Singapore (2022-23); Tabula Rasa gallery, London (2022); Vargas Museum, Philippines (2021); International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York, USA (2020); NTU-Center for Contemporary Art, Singapore (2020); National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum (2017-2019; Raven Row, London (2018), among others.
He will be participating in the forthcoming 14th Mercosul Biennial in São Paulo.