In January 2015, iPreciation will start the new year with a group photography exhibition, presenting the works of four Singaporean artists – Chris Yap (b.1969), Wee Kheng-Li (b.1971), Wang Ruobing (b.1975) and Sai Hua Kuan (b.1976). This show aims to promote greater awareness and understanding of contemporary fine arts photography practice that currently exists here through Singapore artists who are keen to emphasize the role of visual intelligence, critical thinking / theory, and philosophy in engaging with the world through human eyes. The works will focus on the poetics of space and place, tensions of history and contemporaneity, all captured through scenes of the streets in Asia, from Singapore to Japan to Indonesia to China. Works shown will appear as museum-quality, fine art prints in frames, in traditional ink scroll formats and in latest LED lightbox installation presentations. With very few Southeast Asian artists-photographers who can present artistic ideas and dialogues through well-executed photographic works, this is an exceptional opportunity for visitors and Singaporeans to engage with new perspectives and representations in the bodies of photographic works. This exhibition will be the first of several dialogues within and outside of Singapore that will be an ongoing exploration of the concepts and artistic development of professional artists-photographers-printmakers in Singapore.
Photography mobilize the idea of history, time and space. Through their lenses, these artists have focused the audience on interesting observations of the streets of Singapore and Asia, where each scene becomes an observed anthropological and cultural space. In walking through these spaces with these artists, we walk into a historical moment in time – a unique point in history that has arrived and left, its moment immortalized only on the captured images. This show invites Singaporeans and collectors interested in photography and art to engage with the work. For photographs are not just stories or an end in themselves. They provide evidences of stories – evidences that demand investigation and interpretation, and an invitation to look beyond the aesthetics and techniques of photography, into informed critical observations of our visual history to interpret and understand our society and culture.
