Known for his nostalgic depictions of Singapore's iconic buildings and classic characters, Dyn's latest body of work is a departure from his previous monocular focus as he pushes further into issues of identity, memory, and connection. In doing so, this body of work asks, "Do places define people or do people define place?"

Working in pairs and his signature poster art aesthetic, Dyn depicts figures on one canvas and buildings or places on the other. The connections may not be familiar to all, yet for certain generations of Singaporeans the pairs are inextricably linked. The artist says, "This series is essentially a research project based on questions I had about my memories of Singapore and why certain people and places always seemed parts of a whole."

The exhibition title refers to the Japanese manga cartoon Ghost in the Shell, which in turn is a play on the philosophical mind-body problem famously summarised by British philosopher Gilbert Ryle as "ghost in the machine." Dyn says, "This question of where identity resides is of interest to me. In this case, however, instead of the mind-body connection, I wanted to consider how our memory uses key connections to recall past identities. Keeping these related places and figures on physically separate canvases is one way to consider to what extent each identity informs the other."

This exhibition is presented by OCBC Bank and organised by Chan Hampe Galleries