Rebel in Arcadia is the second solo exhibition by artist Poon Lian. Featured works include depictions of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Kee Lung Harbour in Taipei, Balinese beaches, the coasts in Kelantan and Penang as well as the Jiuzhaigou waterfalls in Sichuan and Duxton Hill in the heart of Chinatown, Singapore. The exhibition will be held at Lim Hak Tai Gallery at NAFA Campus 1, from 5 to 17 December, with Mr Sam Tan, Senior Parliamentary Secretary of Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) presiding as Guest of Honour at the opening on 4 December 2010, Saturday at 2.30pm.
Poon Lian has kept busy since his first solo exhibition, Artistic Odyssey in 2007. He participated in six group exhibitions such as Asia in Focus in Taipei; NAFA 70 Years After, Hwa Chong 90th Anniversary Art Exhibition; Landmarks, Taipei at Black Earth Art Museum; Still Life in Focus at MICA Building and Many Minds One Destiny at NAFA. In the last three years, the prolific artist worked tirelessly at creating over 40 new works in Chinese ink, oil, acrylic and mixed media especially for this exhibition. Poon Lian is an artist who constantly develops his practice and new methods in artistic creation to best exemplify his forward thinking and innovative spirit. He travels regularly in search of new ideas and subject matter.
The 63-year-old full-time artist said, “I received rigorous training in both Chinese and Western art so I benefit from the ability to use both techniques in creating my artwork. I do not hold on tightly to tradition, I am not afraid of being labelled ‘off-side’. Continuous improvement and revamp is the responsibility of successors of tradition; innovation is the core of tradition. Although I am exhibiting paintings from the past three years, they are a culmination of nearly forty years of experimentation and practice.”
Ms Bridget Tracy Tan, Director of Institute of Southeast Asian Arts & Art Galleries at NAFA, remarked, “Poon Lian represents a generation of artists who were schooled in the richness of both Chinese traditions and those of the West. While he has fallen in the footsteps of the ambiguous tradition of ‘Nanyang’, he is the first to acknowledge what it may mean to practice in such a style, especially in tandem with his practice as an individual artist. As a NAFA graduate and a private student of the well-known pioneer, Chen Wen Hsi, Poon has spent particularly the last two decades or so honing the inventiveness of his current practice, incorporating the spirit of adventure and innovation that the local pioneer artists embraced.”
The president of NAFA, Mr Choo Thiam Siew said, “NAFA is proud to collaborate with Poon Lian on his second solo exhibition. May his example be a guiding light to artists of the latter generations in expounding the depth of ‘Nanyang’ as a style, but also as a place where art-making will thrive and change the course of civilisation.”
Rebel in Arcadia, 2nd Solo Exhibition by Poon Lian is generously sponsored by the Lee Foundation as well as the National Arts Council Singapore.
Opening Ceremony: 4 December 2010, Saturday, 2.30pm
