artcommune and AC43 Gallery are pleased to present The Story of Two Presses, which delves into the little-known history and collaborative culture of contemporary printmaking in Singapore. Featuring works by Chen Cheng Mei, Chng Seok Tin, Chen Shitong, Chiew Sien Kuan, Chua Chon Hee, Ho E Moi, Nhawfal Juma’at, Nyan Soe, Oh Chai Hoo and Tan Sock Fong, this multi-generational showcase centres on the developments of two specific printmaking workshops helmed by local artists in Singapore - the LASALLE Printing Workshop (in LASALLE College of the Arts) led by Chen Cheng Mei and Chng Seok Tin between the mid-1980s and 1990s, and Pulp Editions founded by Chen Shitong in 2017.
Though operating over 30 years apart, both printers embody the fervent ground-up initiative of local artists whose passion and sacrifices became instrumental in developing the contemporary printmaking scene in Singapore. The Story of Two Presses presents around 30 fine art prints spanning the period of 1980s to 2022, with almost all being produced in these two workshops.
Celebration of Chng Seok Tin’s birthday, circa 1992.
Artists Ho E Moi, Chen Cheng Mei, and Chng Seok Tin (from left to right in the foreground) with students at the LASALLE Printing Workshop in Telok Kurau. Photograph courtesy of Dahlia Osman (2nd from right in the background), student of Chng Seok Tin.
More often than not, a series of small, thoughtful gestures from one or two individuals is all it takes to set forth a course of meaningful developments for an entire community. In 1985, the dedication of Brother Joseph McNally, who founded LASALLE College of the Arts in 1984, was met with an equal measure of selflessness from artist Chen Cheng Mei, who readily helped facilitate the inception of the school’s printmaking department by placing her own newly imported English etching press and print materials in the school’s printing workshop for all students and interested artists to use.
Chen Cheng Mei (b. 1927, Singapore - d. 2020, Singapore) herself was primarily an oil painter who had trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (1949-54). While visiting Paris in 1980, she hung out at the renowned Atelier 17 printer owned by Stanley William Hayter and was determined to experiment further with press techniques. This prompted her purchase of an expensive English etching press in 1985 for her personal use. In the early years of the newly-opened LASALLE, Brother McNally had had to contend with limited funds and resources, and Chen Cheng Mei’s generous gestures had allowed the school to run its printmaking department with verve and aptitude. Her informal gifting of the etching press and materials enabled LASALLE to hire Chng Seok Tin (b. 1946, Singapore - d. 2019, Singapore), who had just returned to Singapore after many years of training and experimenting with print techniques in the US, to helm the department in 1985. In the late 80s, Chen Cheng Mei also added an imported German lithograph press to the workshop. Over the years, she continued to donate many print materials including paper, imported plates and acids to the workshop.
As a teacher and mentor, Chng Seok Tin was instrumental in fostering the first of print majors amongst art students in Singapore. For up until the late 80s, printmaking was offered only as an exposure module at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the lessons focused more on woodcut and silkscreen printing. LASALLE was effectively the first art school in Singapore to offer a degree majoring in Print, encouraging a more specialised interest in etching and lithography.
Between 1985 and up till the 2000s, Chen Cheng Mei, Chng Seok Tin and Ho E Moi (also Chen’s sister-in-law) worked often at the LASALLE Printing Workshop to produce their own etchings and lithographs. Several students and graduates from LASALLE who were active members of the Contemporary Printmaking Association, Singapore, such as Tan Sock Fong (b. 1966, Singapore, who was amongst LASALLE’s first batch of print majors), also produced many of their works here. In an informal and organic manner, the LASALLE printing workshop functioned as a fecund space where artists of different backgrounds and styles came together to learn and transfer knowledge, bonded by a common interest to pursue contemporary printmaking as an avenue of expression.
The Story of Two Presses aims to celebrate this uniqueness and spirit embodied by the LASALLE printing workshop with a selection of prints completed by Chen Cheng Mei, Chng Seok Tin, Ho E Moi and Tan Sock Fong in this very space.
Boo Sze Yang: Dancing with the Wolves
2–21 July 2021
AC43 Gallery is pleased to present Boo Sze Yang's latest solo exhibition, Dancing with the Wolves, which features over 15 oil works completed in the period of 2015 - 2021. The show spotlights the artist's latest series of work, which explores the validity of Plato's notion of an ideal society comprising people in observance of their classes and duties (producers, auxiliaries, and guardians), in contrast with Thomas Hobbes' view on human nature as selfish and destructive. Darkly comic and brimming with technicolour theatricality, the paintings provoke viewers to contemplate the performative aspect of reality as they navigate daily through the optics that postulate as truth in today's heightened post-truth digital era.
These works by Boo Sze Yang probes our perception of truth and reality, and projects another dimension for contemplating scenes of civic discontent and unrest that have been circulating in the global media in recent years. After studying and re-composing images of protest and punishment, Boo Sze Yang reframes the scenes through dark humour and an exaggerated theatricality, blowing up the uncanny repetition of figures, synchronised dance moves, and poster-like mise-en-scene. Each painting is titled after a well-known song that has been used in certain protest movements around the world, like "Another One Bites the Dust", "Too Young to Die", and "Don't Take Your Guns to Town", creating an intertextuality that enriches our imagination of the scenes and emotions beyond the visuals of his canvases.
With Dancing with the Wolves, Boo Sze Yang invites us to contemplate from an ironic distance the complex battle - physical and moral - between civilians and law enforcement groups (and governments), as each group tries to uphold what is right and safe for the society. In the face of ideological conflicts, how does one sift through the relativity of truth and reality? As viewers processing the events through our digital screens and devices, to what degree can we trust the narratives that are constantly being shaped and framed for us?
Artist Profile
Boo Sze Yang (b. 1965, Singapore) graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1991 and completed his Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art at the University of Reading, UK in 1995. He also obtained a Master in Arts Degree from Chelsea College of Art & Design, the University of the Arts, London in 2004. His work deals with a broad range of subject matters, including mundane domestic objects, images of car and airplane crash scenes, monumental interiors of cathedrals, and the unpeopled chambers of shopping malls. He treats banal objects, modern architectural interiors, and destructive scenes as metaphors for the human condition, transforming these into a symbol of contemporary life through gestural techniques and a restrained palette that emphasises the materiality of paint. In his exploration of portraitures, Boo Sze Yang blends his personal experiences with everyday social and political events to generate ironic and idiosyncratic portraitures that serve up comic observations of everyday life.
