"Heads Up", a portrait group show at Weiling Gallery.

'Portrait of Jor'. Waterbased paint, acrylic, pencil, colour threads and varnish with graphite powder on canvas, 92x73cm, 2010.

'Portrait of xian'. Waterbased paint, acrylic, pencil, emboss-paste, colour threads and varnish with graphite powder on canvas, 92x73cm, 2010.

"Yes Sir...One Step" -- Mixed media, size varied, 2009.

"Yes Sir..One Step". Plywood, paint, pencil drawimg, plaster cast, wood stick with carved textures, transfer print on paper with collage, old shoes covered with plaster with pencil drawing, spray paint. Size varied. 2009.

"Yes Sir...One Step" (side view)

"Yes Sir...One Step" (details 1)

"Yes Sir...One Step" (details 2)

"Yes Sir...One Step" (details 3)

''One Voice''. -- 14 individual clay objects with carved texture on sand, unglazed and fired to 1180'c. Size varied. 2009.

"One Voice"
''One Voice"

''One Voice" (section)

"One Voice" (details)

'One Voice" (details)

"Postcards to Melaka"--art work for MAPFest (Melaka Art and Performance Festival, 09). St. Paul's Church, Melaka.

Plaster cast from old postcards, 5 individual blocks.

Sculpture

'White soul', recycled paper & casting slip,fired at 1000c, 1996.

'Untitled', wine glass, dead bees cover with porcelain slip fired at 1000c.

'Untitled', rcycled paper & semi porcelain casting slip,fired 1000c, 1996.

'Touch Can Bring Blossom To Things that Decay, recycled paper & casting slip, fired at 1000c, 1997. (I)

'Touch Can Bring Blossom To Things that Decay, recycled paper & casting slip, fired at 1000c, 1997. (II)

'Touch Can Bring Blossom To Things that Decay, recycled paper & casting slip, fired at 1000c, 1997. (III)

'Line of Fire', recycled paper, cotton fabric, wire & semi porcelain casting slip, fired at 1000c, 1996.

'Dry Land', steel wool, semi porcelain casting slip, fired at 1000c, 1996.

'Deep Peace. Great Darkness', polythene bags, water, 1997.

'Deep Peace. Great Darkness', polythene bags, water, 1997. (detail)

'Boxes', steel wool & semi porcelain casting slip,fired at 1000c, 1996.

'Aged', recycled paper & semi porcelain casting slip, fired at 1000c, 1996.

Bangun-Penang Clan Jetties Arts Project 2009

Bangun-Penang clan Jetties Arts Project is an ongoing series of contemporary site-specific art project focusing on history, heritage, community and culture.

My intended concept for this site-specific work is to introduce the art work into the environment, to merge with the living space of the community; and the installed work would have the function of revamp and replacing the old and damaged plank from the bridge, and hence become a permanent art work which belongs to the community.

The plank was requested from local resident and carved with relevant images taken from the site and return; five pieces in total were completed and installed along the end of the bridge.


The view after all carved sections have been installed.

Cutting off the damaged plank from the bridge.

Replacing a new section with carved image back to the bridge.

Work I

Work II

Work III

Work IV

Work V

An idyllic Space

I have always been interested in our living spaces, where buildings and houses are structured systematically, and streets and roads meander through them and plants, objects and signs are spread all around. All these 'things' are situated within a particular space and become 'Places' which humans accommodate.

My work explores the notion of' 'existence' of place and space. Each 'place' has its own identity and significance. From each journey I have photographed and recorded the places that I have visited, and the events and activities which have occurred during my time spent there.

Selected images were then combined or juxtaposed to construct a 'new place' in my art work; thus carrying within its symbolic gestures which reveal our social structure and human activities.

My approach involves applying common and familiar images, together with other unidentified marks and textures onto paper or canvas. Colours and the contrast of its visual tactility are important in my work as it stimulates ones perception towards the interpretation of the artwork when confronted.

In an attempt to construct an idealized place/space through images taken from the surroundings in my artworks, I destruct the true identity of the actual place in the visual form.

My objective is to confront my audience with the tension between place and space, between reality and idealization; making use of the images to investigate the boundaries between inside and outside, of place and non-place. Therefore, a new 'place' is created using images form various different places derived from the real world, and they become a 'landscape' exit of sorts within ones perception.

'Best Wishes', water-based paint, pencil, bitumen & silkscreen print on canvas, 162.5x129.5cm.

'The Way Things Are Seen', water-based paint, pencil, transfer print collage, graphite powder with varnish, and silkscreen print on canvas, 147.5x153cm.

'Polo Ground-Ipoh', water-based paint, pencil, resin and silkcreen print on canvas, 162.5x129.5cm.

'Untitled', water-based paint, object print collage, and silkscreen print on canvas, 61x147.3cm.

'Street Walker XIV' (Seeking), bitumen, pencil, charcoal, transfer print and silkscreen print on paper, 70x100cm.

'Street Walker II' (Indication), bitumen, pencil, charcoal and transfer print on paper, 35x70cm.

'Street Walker VII' (Looking into the Void), bitumen, charcoal, pencil and transfer print on paper, 35x70cm.



'Residue' (detail), plaster cast from silkcreen print, 6x6x8cm.

Fact or Fiction

There’s something intriguing about how bookstores arrange their shelves: fiction and non-fiction. It implies two separate worlds operating along different sets of rules and values – one rational, objective and factual in nature, the other based on make-belief, fantasy and escape. Combines, they make up a catalogue of the infinite ways we understand and experience our world.

This second solo exhibition of Kim Ng’s works brings to mind such a catalogue. On the one hand, it is a catalogue of what we may loosely call ‘facts’ (I prefer ‘non-fictions) – photographic images of his surroundings the landscape and his young son; as well as found objects like plants and plastic bags. But rather than this, it is also a catalogue of visual treatments, a cornucopia of techniques including collage, woodcut, monoprinting, painting, drawing, silkscreen, photography, ceramics, embossing and etching. Together, a visual vocabulary emerges that is neither fact nor fiction, but something that tries tow walk the line between.

Many of the works recall a pop-art aesthetic, particularly ones which feature silk-screened repetitions of images, such as Police.Polis, Scene (Nature and Urban) and Plot IV. But whereas pop-art deals with images as surface signs and commodities, Kim treats his images with a lot more tactility, often juxtaposing them with a print taken directly from a found object such as a plastic bag. The plastic bag, once a tactile thing full of volume, texture and even sound, becomes flattened onto the picture surface. This seems to suggest that images and impressions are more than flickers on the surface of the eye – that they can have odor, shape and depth.

Printmaking is essentially about taking an impression of something and transferring it onto another surface. It is a practice with a long tradition. The lithographic stone, copperplate and woodblock have a history in ink of several centuries. Silk-screening is modern in comparison – probably about 30 to 40 years old. Even the potato block projects you did as a child, or rubber stamps used by government servants to date their documents, these are all in the language of printmaking.

It is interesting that Kim is often associated as a printmaker, although his works clearly demonstrate a vibrant and fluid traveling between many mediums. One is seldom privileged over the other. This then could be because he engages with the language of printmaking, which is that of taking impressions. His Filling the Void series is a case in point. These intimate, delicate works are made by tracing the holes left in dead leaves by insects, then filling the shapes in with pencil and bitumen. The impression he has taken is not so much of the leaf object, but of the action of caterpillars’ jaws slowly munching through foliage. Likewise, the image that results is not a record, but a trace – very much like traces left on the mind by memories.

In the end, memories (like dreams) are a strange cocktail of fact and fiction. What we felt to be so real – like the laughter of a friend, or the way the light fell on a particularly sunny morning, or the smell of blood and sweat during a political rally – might exist only imperfectly and incompletely in or minds. Imagine, that in all the world, these memory are recorded in only one person – you. Does that make them less precious, less potent?

The wonderful thing about Kim’s works is that they are more than representations of his memories. They also talk about the way memory works. The range of his craft and diversity of visual vocabulary indicate that for every fact, there is an accompanying fiction; impressions are not solid or fixed, but fluid agents that need to be engaged with a constantly changing set of interfaces.

Sharon Chin
Kuala Lumpur, 2006

'From the Land', silkscreen, woodblock, object print, monoprint, water-based print, bitumen, 2006.

'Untitled #72', silkscreen print, pencil, bitumen, water-based paint, 70x100cm, 2006.

'Pure Conversation', silkscreen, object print, spray paint, Chinese ink, colour pigment, bitument, 70x100cm, 2006.

'Landscape with Bird', object print, silkscreen, collagraph, bitumen, 35x100cm, 2006.

'The Sky, The Land & The Water-Mark', screen print, object print, water-based paint, graphite powder with varnish, 35x70cm, 2006.

'Plot III', object print, water-based paint, water-based paint, 35x70cm, 2006

'Waiting', monoprint, silkscreen, water-based paint, 35c100cm, 2006.

'Plant IV', object print, bitument, printed colalge, 25x35cm, 2006

'Land of Giant', silkscreen print, water colour, indian ink, 20x29cm, 2006.

'Jordan', silkscreen print, woodcut, 20x29cm, 2006.

'A Drop', object print, woodcut, water-based paint, 20x29cm, 2006.