Happy Chinese New Year!
We hope you the best and prosperity for the year to come, and also enjoy the festive season.

In the meantime, please note that our gallery will be closed for the Chinese New Year, and open again on next Friday 19th.
 
Chinese New Year is getting close now and we're juggling paintings to be stretched nicely on stretcher for the show end of this month.
As much as it's a bit of hustle getting slightly dusty in the gallery, it is quite exciting seeing the artworks displayed to be stretched.
We also acquired new artworks from our beloved artist Andre Tan, the free spirited artist with lovely paintings, also one of our Proxies from previous exhibition.
His three new artworks are actually on the wall in our gallery so if you happen to drop by and see us shuffling busily on our feet trying to organize the gallery, you won't be disappointed.
You'll get to see these new artworks, as well as another Proxies' - Safaruddin - artwork from previous exhibition.
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Our first show this year, Showcase 2010, featuring artists from different countries to give sneak preview for artworks we will be presenting this year, will be opening at the end of this month.

Details are as follow;

Date: Friday 26 Feb
Venue: D'peak Art Space Singapore
Time: 7pm - 9pm

Some of the artists we will be showcasing are; Andy Wahono, Ekwan Marianto, Sui, Kyi Wynn...

For RSVP, please contact us on;
[email protected]
6848-9267
or please use the RSVP form on our "Curating" page.
 
The showcase of Proxies - by Andre Tan and Safaruddin is coming to an end on this weekend.

If you've missed the opening to see the artworks, and to mingle with artists...
or if you've missed out on the show because you were away or busy..

This is your last chance to catch the pop art of Singapore. Don't give a miss!
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It's been a while, we hope everyone enjoyed their jolly merry holidays.
In a meantime, we are coming up with plan for this year's showcases.
One of them we're planning on showcasing local artists - will be group exhibitions..
If there are any artists living in Singapore that is interested in exhibiting their artworks, please send us an email with your CV and images of your artworks to;
[email protected]
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Prior to the exhibition, we were spinning quite busy with all the preps, including visiting the artist's studio to check out their new works. 
Well, we took on the lovely opportunity to throw some questions about their artworks...;

The questions were;
1. What is pop art to you. Do you consider yourself an pop artist?
2. How do you choose your theme? Why? How did it start?
3. What is your personal interest?
4. What is artmaking to you?
5. What do you find inspiring?
6. What are you trying to transpire from the current collection?

(The answer by each artists given are written in rather frank manners but that does not mean that they are blunt, it is just the writing.)

Safaruddin:

1. What is pop art to you. Do you consider yourself an pop artist?

No, not really pop art, no specific genre..  Pop art, to me is a mere inspiration I go through.  I still do get inspired by pop art, graphic arts and such.
People ask me if I'm a pop artist, if I say no, then they ask why why why why? Then I'd say yes, but that's it. I like graphic art, because there's no such thing as traditional digital arts.

2. How do you choose your theme? Why? How did it start?

My works have always been of nostalgia, about places, buildings, popular icons, things I grew up with.  It actually started from when I was in school.  It's about little sense of displacement.  Singapore is not a big place, but despite the size, it's always changing.  Not just the people, but physical landscape as well. I'm interested in such objects.

3. What is your personal interest? 

I'm interested in things that makes me happy. My artwork is archiving, and documentation of my happy times.  The things I like about pop art is that prior to that the access to art was limited.  But when pop art came along into the scene, it granted access to art for everyone.

4.  What is artmaking to you? 

Making happy factor, and working on passion and living.

5. What are you trying to transpire from the current collection?

To deliver the happiness, and to make artwork that triggers viewer's older memory.  Building as a theme, is like pimping them, giving them a make over.. The look of the place that I've never been there before but feels that it changed a lot over the time, doesn't seem like it's there anymore. It's like trying to immortalize the moment.

Then, moving on to Andre:

1. What is pop art to you. Do you consider yourself an pop artist?

Contemporary artist, rather than pop art.  Because pop art is influenced by popular culture.  Pop art is something I come across with before he transpire into the own artworks.

2. How do you choose your theme? Why? How did it start?

It's something I like.  The hero paintings of putting historical figure against fictional cartoon character is my creation of new platform.  How you see the relations between these characters, are up to you.

Is Mao a hero to you?

It is not up to me to tell whether he's a hero or not, it's something I kind of grew up with, just his historical figure. I think Ghandi is a hero though.

3.  Personal Interest?

Well, not sure.  Painting, I suppose.
Whatever I'm interested in, I start working on it, and the outcome is product is always the paintings.

4. What do you find inspiring?

Warhol, cultural magazine, music, movie.  Like cover of music CD and records.
It's how you take the elements off the visual images and work into your own painting.

5. What are you trying to transpire from the current collection?

Not sure!
Process of questioning...idealization of idea...
Will definitely be asking audiences the definition of hero? Who's your hero? What do you idolize?
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Well, that is quite nice insight into artists' works.
How you connect artist' saying with actual artworks is up to you.. :)
 
Our exhibition; Proxies is officially open now.

Both artists were present in the opening.
Although there were no talk given by them at the time, we are organizing yet another exhibition walk through next month, which will be a nice opportunity to find out more about artists and their artworks.

The opening reception took on last Friday the 11th, along with ART SEASON's opening reception as well.
As far as we have observed, all artworks seemed to have been received pretty well.

Our gallery space is again, beautifully decorated in happy lollipop colored arts and has got rather merry atmosphere for the festive season to come.

The Proxies exhibition will run through till the mid next month, but considering that we will be closed on long weekends on both next week for Christmas, and one after for new year, it might be safe to give us a call so we can assist you for sure for your visit.

In the meantime,we will look forward to your visit!
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The photograph impressions of the fair is still on the way.
We'll share a bit of catalogue, and what was the go in Daegu art fair.

So far, we've heared from our D'peak team who travelled to Daegu that;

- Daegu, is a pretty quiet place, country side, and art is not really established there, yet.

- Hence people there are not very familiar with arts. Apparently people thought paintings were photographs and some touched the paintings.  Mostly taking photos with peace sign; sounds like an attraction at theme park.

-As for the program; not much were planned out.  Group of VIP guests were tagged along with guide to go around the fair, but eventually settled down where the foods were at.

- Even though art galleries pay for the fair fees, it is whole different story when it comes to asking for help to hang up the artworks... So apparently, there were few art gallery owners/directors banging on the wall with hammers, in order to hang up the paintings themselves.

Okay, all above doesn't look too good.  But of course our team goes through Seoul as well, where the domestic art market is still strong, like each household has painting on their walls.  Which sounds great indeed.  As much as art is becoming a term of investment nowadays, it is very nice to know that some market are strong simply because people actually enjoys artworks.

Here are some pages from Catalog; with lots of fantastic artworks.  If you're interested in going through the catalog, it will be available for viewing in our gallery.
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This is another painting from our D'peak brochure from the art fair. Which attracted most attentions.  Seems like this sort of paintings were their cup of tea.

 
If you have noticed during "The Bridges of Nature" exhibition, we had few books about the artist; I Nyoman Sujana Kenyem.

One is his biography and another is catalog from his previous exhibition in Indonesia.

These publications are now available for purchase in the gallery.  Of course they will be both available for you to flick through the pages at our upcoming opening reception, but if you're interested in purchasing please let us know.
*Prices are to be advised
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Biography written by I Wayan Suwardika.
It is written both in Bahasa and English.

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Catalog

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There was an art fair held in Daegu, South Korea last month which we featured some of our artists then.
We will post up few photos from the fair itself in our next blogs, but in the mean time, here are the photos from our brochure;
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Andy Wahono, 'Prajurit Berkuda',  Acrylic on Canvas,  2008

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Ekwan Marianto, 'Kau Kan Ku Tangkap' 2009, Acrylic on Canvas

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Agus Riyadi, 'Di Hari Valentine' 2009, Oil on canvas

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Nur Khamim, 'Splash', 2008, Oil on Canvas

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Yayat Lesmana, 'Wanted', Acrylic on Canvas, 2007