The Style of My Artworks

When I was going into sculptures, I did quite a bit of exploration into different styles and different materials. Some of these exploratory items are still on my shelves.

I submitted some of them into the Annual 3D Art Exhibitions of the Ngee Ann Cultural Centre at Tank Road. Among those I submitted, although there were a variety of styles, I was drifting towards creative artworks that are figurative and express strong emotions. They were not large as, perhaps for their practical reasons, these Exhibitions had to impose limitations on the size and weight of the artworks.

Subsequently I was honoured to be sponsored by this Ngee Ann Cultural Center (NACC) to hold a solo exhibition in May 2007. For this exhibition, the styles of my artworks were creative, figurative, expressing emotions, and with something to communicate. They are not necessarily stand-alone sculptures. The general term for some of them is installations. Doing installations allow the artist to have more freedom which is a necessary condition to be creative.

The Exhibition Hall is big. Thus some of my artworks could be big. There is now no size limitations other than the ceiling height. But to get more freedom from height limitation, some of my artwork were placed ourside the exhibition hall.

For this exhibition, I gave the title, "Our World Today". My focus was on humanity around the world. As many viewers may not know the background to what the artworks are expressing, to each of them I add a relatively long write-up to explain.

After this exhibition, I slowed down in the making of statues but continued to make installations making use of mostly of plastics boards very much becuae as they are not too heavy. These are again based on the human figure.

At the same time, I started to explore doing oil paintings. By then it is clear I focus on the realism style of paintings, many of them figurative but not all.

Then I got news I was sponsored a second time by the Ngee Ann Cultural Centre to hold a solo exhibition. This was held recently in October 2009, called "Our Changing World".

Thus in terms of contents, they continue to be about topical issues, events and people around our world. My artwork style continues to be the same.

I am surrounding by my paintings

For the time being, I've finished hanging up my paintings, both along my staircase and in a room upstair. As my wall space is limited, the paintings are crowded together all over the walls.

These paintings were mostly painted for my large solo exhibition in October 2009 with the theme 'Our Changing World'. Thus they are mostly on topical issues, events and people from around the world. Their style is realism, many of them figurative.

When I walk up and down the staircase and through this room to take a short cut to my study room, I feel surrounded by thing to do with our world.

To show what I mean, I have taken a video of these hung up paintings, and have loaded it into YouTube. It is here, duration 9 min. Oil Paintings on 'Our Changing World'

I cleared an upstair room to hang more paintings

By now my staircase is filled up with paintings, crowding against each other. The extra lightings have also been adjusted and improved.

But as I still have paintings to hang up, I decided to clear up one of my extra room upstair on top of the staircase. It was once a guest bedroom subsequently used for storage. The wall spaces on two sides can be used to hang paintings.

I thus clear off the things inside, some to be thrown away, some are put aside to give away, and the rest are moved into a smaller room next to the room I want to clear. This clearing is easily said than done. I keep being distracted by the old things I have to deal with.

Among the paintings I have to hang up, six of them are not on canvas. They are on plastics panels, each of size 2 x 4 ft. They are heavier than stretched canvas, hung not at the centre but at the two ends. They really gave me problem hanging up by myself. Once I had to call for an extra pair of hands to help.

I've now hung up all my paintings that deserve displaying, and have installed extra lighting in this upstair room.

Perhaps I'll do a retake of a video of the staircase and add on this room.