The Managed Heart: Art And Emotional Labour

This group exhibition of seven artists is well worth the trek to Nanyang Technological University’s ADM Gallery.

Spurning the socio-historical and thematic lenses through which most shows are curated, gallery director Michelle Ho returns to the basics of art as process.

Every work she collects here emphasises the sometimes arduous and circular emotional labour in art practice, though each also aims at something cathartic.

So, Mike H.J. Chang’s series of sketchbooks, filled in after his aunt’s death in 2019, are full of expressionist drawings, collages, stippled ink-jet printed images and his handwritten notes – each a way of coping with the disruption of grief.

A room filled with Angie Seah’s installations reduces ordinary actions to their smallest motions to inspire peace. 

Her eight-step guide, From Shadow To Shaman, instructs visitors to tap their own head with a clay hammer in a spot-lit circle: “Feel the knock of the hammer, breathe... A hammer a day, chase(s) the doctor away.”

Yet, the most laborious may be Nature Shankar’s tactile canvases, crafted into being by her pressing, tearing, dragging, engraving, staining and layering.

Her abstract compositions of fabric and paper – which look soft as pelt, but also resemble crusty surfaces of an alien pink planet – evade any timeline. Shreds from one work are fed into the next or given new life in a previous one.

“The whole series took about six months of destruction and regeneration,” Shankar says. “Some of them contain material from works made a year ago.”

Where: ADM Gallery, School of Art, Design & Media, Nanyang Technological University, 81 Nanyang Drive
MRT: Pioneer
When: Till March 15, 10am to 5pm
Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/w8k4o

T:>Works Script Reading

Theatre company T:>Works presents an afternoon of dramatised readings of four scripts that won its 24-hour playwriting competition in 2023.

They include Threnody by Wong Chen Seong, depicting the relationship between two brothers and their personal struggles with health issues; and Khichuri by Triparna Poddar, which follows a mother and daughter as they come together to prepare the traditional dish.

These scripts will go through development by T:>Works and a team of established directors, dramatists and performers.

Having been written in 24 hours in July 2023, they may yet get to be developed into full-fledged plays.

Where: 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road
MRT: Fort Canning
When: Feb 3, 3 to 5pm
Admission: Free with registration. E-mail 24pwc.tworks@gmail.com
Info: tworksasia.org/24hpc2023

Li Tianbing: Me And The Tree

Catch the last weekend of Opera Gallery’s solo exhibition of Chinese artist Li Tianbing, whose paintings are a surreal blend of memory and fantasy.

To process the reality of an absent father, Li has restored himself to an imagined childhood where he found happy solace in the trees, often painted golden yellow and radiating brightness.

In these, he plays with imagined siblings, impossible due to China’s then one-child policy.

The monochromatic children, contrasted with the vibrant background, make them look like cutouts from old photos and make for an arresting visual juxtaposition.

Where: Opera Gallery Singapore, 02-16 Ion Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn
MRT: Orchard
When: Till Feb 4, 11am to 8pm
Admission: Free
Info: operagallery.com/event/li-tianbing-me-and-the-tree