From explorations of history, nature and identity to multidisciplinary presentations, the artistic practices of Robert Zhao Renhui, Priyageetha Dia and Ezzam Rahman challenge perception and provoke introspection, making them some of the most promising artists working in Singapore today
In 2017, a 25-year-old Priyageetha Dia embarked on a transformative final-year project for her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Lasalle College of the Arts. She covered a staircase in her Jalan Rajah HDB block in Balestier with gold foil. “I wanted to make an everyday space interesting,” she shares. Despite her apprehension about the potential consequences and regulatory uncertainties, she spent five hours on this artistic endeavour. Drawing on her family’s history as goldsmiths, she chose gold to revitalise the public space. The Jalan Besar Town Council labelled Dia’s work as unauthorised, sparking debates on the nature of public art. The work, as you would imagine, immediately drew parallels to street artist Sam Lo’s well-known public art project in 2012 that would see them arrested that same year and charged in 2013.
Reflecting on that period, Dia says: “Honestly, I was unaware of the history and dynamics of street art back then. My focus was simply on using public space for my artwork to exist. I didn’t realise there were different levels of understanding in street art and I certainly didn’t expect my work to be categorised as such. The comparison of my work to that of Sam’s, who was known as ‘Sticker Lady’ then, was unexpected. My approach was to understand the work through theory, which at that time was quite Western-centric in its understanding of space and the phenomena around it.”
