In October 2014, iPRECIATION will be staging Tay Bak Chiang’s solo exhibition. This project will be his eighth solo exhibition after previous ones such as Fa Zi Hua Sheng (2003), Between Breaths (2010), Ingenuity (2011), Hear the Wind Sing (2012), The Breath of A Blade (2013) and The Story of the Stone, where themes of his work have been predominantly inspired by nature.

This exhibition will debut Tay Bak Chiang’s first-ever complete solo exhibition featuring Chinese ink and pigment works on canvas instead of the traditional rice paper. Merging the historical genre of ink painting on contemporary canvases creates a significant exploration and breakthrough, and Bak Chiang is the first Singapore artist to experiment and successfully present a contemporised style of the traditional 3000-year-old Chinese ink painting through a clever manipulation of ink, pigments, canvases and raw linens. He has developed an innovative technique of using powdered colour pigments to produce distinct texture in traditional Chinese ink painting. This set of works also marks his progressive attempts to move away from representational forms and introduce new perspectives in the portrayal of nature with minimalistic simplicity. Stones, to him, are not lifeless objects, but are bestowed with worldly experiences and personal expressions. This which, he expresses through his unique visual language that is in synch with current contemporary art ideas.

iPRECIATION is proud to collaborate with the artist in this endeavor. This exhibition will be supported in art analysis and essay writing by industry veteran Kwok Kian Chow. This show will reflect the artist’s spirit of consistently reflecting, questioning and experimenting with new ideas within the traditional Chinese painting medium in today’s contemporary art world. It will begin new dialogues in this art genre amongst local artists.

-iPreciation

Image: © Tak Bak Chiang
Courtesy of the artist and iPreciation