Where nationality and nationalism seem increasingly emphasised in Singapore and globally, these new works are deviations from such jingoistic sentiments. Rather, Ng explores the possibilities of the nomadic citizen, where one widens and deepens their knowledge through travel. Here, the artist points to both forms of physical and mental travel through our real and virtual personas. The exhibition begins with his Surgery, Zombie and Covid series, which evince a straightforward attempt to deconstruct Abstract Expressionist and formalist ideas around painting, both physically and conceptually. He considers the parallels between medical surgery and abstraction, where the gestures of removal, operation and recovery become methods to critique reductionist traditions. Surgical tools are affixed to the edges of these paintings, frayed and irregular, adding a sculptural quality that necessarily rejects the ‘all-over’ flat surfaces conventional of Abstract Expressionism. Framed landscapes and scenes taken from the Internet and travels resembling an arbitrary newsfeed interrupt the formations of what could be all-white paintings. A calculated sense of spontaneity rests within the seemingly violent gestures of cutting open and dismantling the ‘conventions’ of painting in these works, to arrive at a renewed clarity and understanding around its materiality.
Tucked away in wooden boxes, Looking at the South China Sea is based on a few trips the artist had made to the coasts of South China Sea. With prayer at heart and navigation apps at hand, he searched for fishing villages that pointed towards this hot bed, while paying close attention to the dynamics of nature around him. At times, Ng was trapped in remote locations or swarmed by sandflies while chasing the seas, as he recollects. These scrolls of watercolours were painted on the spot and thus are infused with the saltiness of the sea and this spirit of adventure.
Alongside these new paintings, several examples of earlier series of works such as White Noise made in 2017 and Painting Vocabularies that were first exhibited in his 2019 solo exhibition at NTU ADM gallery Singapore are also on view to provide a broader view of the artist’s oeuvre. In Painting Vocabularies for instance, Ng recalls his past developments on his painting processes and materials, some of which strike a conversation with Abstract Expressionism and painting histories. This imaginary library nestled within the exhibition serves as a personal effort in archiving the some phases in his own painting practice as Ng feels museums would not be inclined to do so. The Not Singapore Art Project: Migration to the Internet Country and Portable Identity is a highly idiosyncratic and introspective exploration of what contemporary painting could be and do for the artist—and perhaps us too—beyond place, time, social structures, and whatnot.
