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Tonight the Air is Warm
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Tonight the Air is Warm
Curated by Tolla Duke Sloane
Tonight the Air is Warm brings together a collection of vibrant and diverse photography, print and video works by eight established, mid-career and emerging artists from Southeast Asia. Curated by Tolla Duke Sloane, the show will occupy both the main and speakeasy space at Kristin Hjellegjerde’s London Bridge gallery, providing audiences the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the region’s artistic landscape. From the tropical gothic to the surrealism of dreams and folklore, and the reimagining of historical narratives, the artists’ reflect on universal issues relating to identity and belonging, whilst also providing heightened and imaginative insights into the cultural specifics of their geographical locations.
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Sarah Choo Jing
Sarah Choo Jing was born in 1990 in Singapore where she currently lives and works. Choo Jing graduated with a BFA in Photography and Digital Imaging with First Class Honours from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2013. In 2015 she completed her MFA in Fine Art Media at Slade School of Art, London, UK. Sarah Choo Jing is highly regarded for her interdisciplinary approach to photography, video and installation art. Her work depicts identifiable moments and characters within contemporary urban society suggesting a plethora of private and often solitary narratives. The artist explores ideas of the gaze of the flaneur, voyeurism and the uncanny. Sarah Choo Jing was recently shortlisted as a Finalist for the Audemars Piguet Art Commission for Art Basel 2020, and invited to present her practice at Le Brassus, Geneva in Switzerland and is a Finalist in the Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2020. Besides she received a large number of awads, which include the Gold Award in the 2019 PX3 Prix de la Photographie Competition, the 2017 Perspectives 40 under 40 Award and came in First Place in the 2015 Moscow International Foto Awards, as well as received ICON De Martell Cordon Bleu award, Photography Award and Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Still Photography Award in 2013.
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Nicole Coson
Nicole Coson (b. 1992) is an artist raised in Manila and currently based in London. In 2014, she completed her studies in Fine Art graduating with first class honours from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. In the same year Coson was nominated for the Saatchi New Sensations Award. She also recently graduated with a MFA in Painting, from the Royal College of Art, London, UK. Coson works on a variety of media, focusing on painting and analogue printmaking techniques, often combining opposing materials and methods, such as digital languages and raw materials. Nicole Coson bases her work on the exploration of visibility and disappearance, combining the familiar and the alien, anonymous and personal. She aims to challenge the viewer to detect cultural precursors as memories, where identity and location blend into seamlessness constructing a space which is both familiar and alien, escapist and entrapping. Her solo exhibitions include Deflect, Galerie Untilthen, Paris, France (2019); Camouflage, Silverlens Galleries, Manila, Philippines (2017); Process of Elimination, Display Gallery, London, UK (2016); How to Appear Without a Trace II, Asia House, London, UK (2015); Ghost, Stamperia Del Tevere, Rome, Italy (2015); Untitled, Finale Art File, Makati City (2014); Spirit Captures, West Gallery, Quezon City (2013).
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Genevieve Chua
Genevieve Chua was born in 1984 in Singapore. She studied painting at the Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore. In addition, in 2018 Chua graduated from the Royal College of Art, UK with a MA in painting and at the moment she continues to work and live between London and Singapore. Genevieve Chua’s art practice is predominantly rooted in abstraction. In her work, Chua often explores diagram, palimpsest, syntax, and the glitch as a way to reveal artist’s process. Chua’s artworks are often based on the subjects of nature and wilderness. In 2012 Genevieve Chua was conferred the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council, Singapore. Genevieve Chua’s solo exhibitions include Twofold, STPI, Singapore (2020); Closed during Opening Hours, Earl Lu Gallery ICA, Singapore (2019); Vestigials and Halves, 7 ½,Seoul (2017); Rehearsals for the Wilful, Silverlens Galleries, Manila (2016); Moths, Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, (2015); Parabola, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Singapore (2014); Cicadas Cicadas, Gusford Gallery, Los Angeles (2014); Another Place, CCC Shizuoka, Japan (2011).
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Yee I- Lann
Yee I-Lann was born in 1971 in Kota Kinabalu, Malasia and is currently based in Kuala Lumpur. She received a BA in Visual Arts from the University of South Australia in 1993. Yee I-Lann‘s primarily photomedia-based practice engages with archipelagic Southeast Asia’s turbulent history, addressing, with wit and humanity, the socio-political impact of current politics, neo-colonialism, and globalization. Yee has established herself over the past 20 years as one of the region's leading contemporary artists, known for her digital photocollage and video works that deftly employ a complex, multi-layered visual vocabulary drawn from historical references, popular culture, archives, and everyday objects – works that speculate on issues of culture, power, and the role of historical memory in social experience, often with particular focus on themes and motifs that reference the indigenous cultures of Borneo. Yee I-Lann’s solo exhibitions include Through Rose-Coloured Glasses, North Park Center, Dallas (2019); Like the Banana Tree At The Gate, MSAC Gallery, Taipei (2016); Yee I-Lann: Picturing Power, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York (2014); Fluid World, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (2011); Boogeyman, Black Box, MAP, Kuala Lumpur (2010).
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Budi Agung Kuswara
Budi Agung Kuswara was born in 1982, in Bali, Indonesia where he continues to live and work. In 2009 Kuswara graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the Indonesia Institute of the Arts (ISI) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Budi Agung Kuswara’s artistic focus lies in the exploration of cultural identity and social environment. Kuswara creates works across different media, including painting, photography and prints. Budi Agung Kuswara’s paintings are inspired by the Kamasan painting, traditional Balinese narrative painting style, in the past mainly used to decorate the island’s temples, but also houses of the aristocracy. In his paintings, Kuswara often sets his figures against signature deep blue colour, creating works that examine cultural identity, celebrate society and culture while also exploring problems of social reality. Budi Agung Kuswara solo exhibitions include Anonymous Ancestors, Ubud Readers & Writer’s Festival, Bali, Indonesia (2018); Arus Berlabuh Kita, Asian Civilization Museum, Singapore (2018); After Paradise, Paradiso, Bali, Indonesia (2015); Jump!, the Cones a long Theatre Street, The Esplanade, Singapore (2013); Kebon Indah, Baba House, National University Singapore Museum, Singapore (2013);Weaving Dreams in the Wind, Community Wall, The Esplanade, Singapore (2013); Floating Desires, TAKSU Gallery, Singapore (2012); The 12th Winds of Artist in Residence, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (2012); i.self, Komaneka Fine Art Gallery, Bali, Indonesia (2008).
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Wawi Navarroza
Wawi Navarozza was born in 1979 in Manila, Philippines where she currently lives and works. In 2002, Navarozza graduated with a BA in Communication Arts, with honours from De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines and in 2009 attended International Center of Photography in New York. In 2012 she completed her scholarship for the Eauropean Master of Fine Art Photography programme at the Istituto Europeo di Design-Madrid, Spain. Wawi Navarozza creates works across a wide range of media, but is primarily known for her use of photography in her art practice. The artist creates highly stylised photographs in which she investigates displacements, disorientation and discovery, reflecting on the exploration of a deeper sense of place and identity. Navarozza was awarded Kuala Lumpur International Photography Awards in 2018 and has widely exhibited her works in solo and group shows globally. Her solo exhibitions include Self-Portraits & The Tropical Gothic, Silverlens Galleries, Manila (2019); Medusa, Silverlens Galleries, Manila (2017); On Landscape & Some Dislocations, Galería Patrick Domken, Cadaqués, Spain (2012); When All Is Said And Done, Artesan Gallery, Singapore (2008); Saturnine: A Collection of Portraits, Creatures, Glass & Shadow, Silverlens, Manila / McDermott Gallery, Siem Reap, Cambodia / ArtReflex Gallery, Saint-Petersburg, Russia (2007); Polysaccharide: The Dollhouse Drama, Blacksoup Project Artspace, Manila / Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila / La Trobe University, Bendigo, Australia (2005).
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Jo Ngo
Jo Ngo was born in 1995 in Saigon, Vietnam where she is currently based. Jo Ngo studied Fine Art at Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, USA. Her work explores moving image, virtual reality, augmented reality, new media and conceptual art. In her pieces, Jo Ngo translates ideas of social justice and environmental vulnerability by displaying post human worlds and juxtaposing human and manmade with organic forms, exploring the interaction between the two. Her solo shows include Solo exhibition, Á experimental space nghệ thuật thử nghiệm, Hanoi, Vietnam (2020) and After The Rain, Common 9, Saigon, Vietnam (2019). Jo Ngo also participated in international group shows and performances which include (Upcoming) Tonight The Air Is Warm, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2021); Rục Rà Rục Dịch, Toong co-working space, Hanoi and Saigon, Vietnam (2020); You Can Talk To Me, Exhibition Center, Hanoi, Vietnam (2020); Body and Soul performance, music by Annam, performer Thanh Buddha, stage visual by Tong Khanh Ha collaborating with Le Tran Quynh Anh, kinetic floor visual by Jo Ngo at CABCON festival, CAB Hoian (2020); Men like Earth, featured at Creative Code Art festival, Lightbox, NYC (2020); The You performance, conducted by Ian Richter, Đoàn Thanh Toàn and Jo aka Ngô Kỳ Duyên, The Goethe-Institut Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam (2020); The You performance, conducted by Ian Richter, Đoàn Thanh Toàn and Jo aka Ngô Kỳ Duyên, the Vocational Ballet School of Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, Vietnam (2020); You Can Talk To Me, Tipsy Art, Saigon, Vietnam (2019); Future Shorts Vietnam, short film premiere, Saigon Outcast, Saigon, Vietnam (2019); Levi Masuli sound buffet, visual jockey, 289e, Saigon, Vietnam (2019); Who Are We, Experimental Concert, organizer, Salon Saigon, Vietnam (2019); VJ Season Post Human, video jockey, Yoko Café, Saigon, Vietnam (2019); Future Shorts Vietnam, Saigon Outcast, short film premiere, Vietnam (2019).
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Manit Sriwanichpoom
Manit Sriwanichpoom was born in 1961 in Bangkok, Thailand where he is currently based. In 1984 Sriwanichpoom graduated with a BA in Visual Art from the Srinakharinvirot University, Bangkok, Thailand. Manit Sriwanichpoom is a multidisciplinary artist, creating artworks across photography, performance, video, and painting. His art addresses political and socio-economical issues facing his native Thailand. Sriwanichpoom’s most iconic works feature the artist’s friend and poet Sompong Thawee, “pink man”, and allude to uncomfortable issues of contemporary consumerist society. In 2014 French Ministry of Culture awarded Sriwanichpoom the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In addition, in 2007 he was awarded Japan’s prestigious Higashikawa Overseas Photographer Prize. Manit’s work is held in important public collections, such as the collection of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; Maison Europeenen de la Photographie, France; the National Gallery of Australia and the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; the National Gallery, Singapore; Vehbi Koc Foundation, Turkey; H&F Foundation, Netherlands; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Thailand and Art Vantage, Israel Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. His solo shows include Shocking Pink Story, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York, USA (2018); Lost, A+ Works of Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2018); Fear, Yavuz Gallery, Singapore (2016); Bangkok in Technicolor, Kathmandu Photo Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand (2014); Obscene, H Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand (2012); The Lambs of God, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia (2008); Man in Pink, Galerie VU’, Paris, France (2007); Beijing Pink, Highland Gallery, Beijing, China (2006); Bangkok in Pink, the Gallery, Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan (2002).
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Robert Zhao Renhui
Robert Zhao Renhui is a Singaporean artist born in 1983. He graduated with a BA degree in photography from the Camberwell College of Arts at the University of the Arts London in 2005 and obtained his Masters degree from the London College of Communication at the University of the Arts London in 2011. His medium of preference is photography, however, he often adopts a multi-disciplinary approach by presenting images together with documents and objects. In his art, Robert Zhao Renhui addresses environment, human’s relationship with nature, and associated issues of morality and ethics, exploring how our attitudes and opinions shape assumptions about the natural world. Robert Zhao Renhui was awarded several reputable prizes such as Deutsche Bank Award In Photography, University of the Arts London, London, UK in 2011, Young Artist Award, Singapore in 2010 as well as was a finalist in the 12th Benesse Prize, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore in 2019. His solo shows include Robert Zhao Renhui: The Lines We Draw, ShanghART Singapore, Singapore (2020); New Forest, Mind Set Art Center, Taipei (2019); The Institute of Critical Zoologists Final Report of the Christmas Island Expert Working Group, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore (2018); Robert Zhao Renhui: Christmas Island, Naturally, ShanghART M50, Shanghai (2017); The Nature Museum, Singapore International Festival of Art, 72-13, Singapore (2017); Singapore, Very Old Tree, National Museum of Singapore, Singapore (2017); The Nature Collector-Robert Zhao Renhui, ShanghART Main Space, Shanghai (2015); A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World, Centre of Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia (2015); Fake or Reality, Galarie Anzenberger, Vienna, Austria (2014); Flies Prefer Yellow, Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, U.S.A (2014); The Institute of Critical Zoologists, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK (2012); The Land Archive, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore (2011); The Whiteness of a Whale, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (2010).
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Due to the cramped urban spaces of the Southeast Asian cities, photography and other digital mediums are central to the region’s contemporary art scene, allowing artists to transcend their physical boundaries. Thai artist and social activist Manit Sriwanichpoom is widely recognised as one of the original pioneers of a more conceptual, socio-geographical approach to photography and is best known for his striking Pink Man series (1997-2018) from which two works will be shown in this exhibition. The selected photographs feature the cartoon-esque character - who is embodied by Thai poet Sompong Thawee - posed within the set of a so-called ‘opera’. Dressed in his signature fluorescent pink suit with a matching shopping trolley, the character’s presence is both humorous and jarring, mutely referencing the absurdity of consumer culture.
Similarly, Malaysian artist Yee I-Lann’s primarily photomedia-based art practice draws on the visual language of magic realism and mythology to speculate on issues of culture, power and the resonance of historical narratives in collective consciousness. Her large-scale photo-collage artwork Like the Banana Tree at the Gate conjures up the folkloric figure of the Pontianak (the ghostly spirit of a vengeful woman who was said to live in a banana tree), who is embodied by several well known artists and activists within a contemporary studio setting. I-Lann uses humour as a satirical tool to both charm the viewer and once again, expose the absurdity of traditional perspectives in the context of the modern world.
Sarah Choo Jing’s practice also employs theatrical techniques, often designing controlled spaces that used to incite spontaneous interaction. For her video installation Tonight, the air is warm (after which the exhibition is titled), she invited the residents of a social housing complex in Singapore to gather in the playground area at night where she left varying props for them to interact with under stage lighting. ‘The essential nature of the activity is imprecise and occurs across space and time,’ commented the artist. ‘A perpetually open project, the piece takes place in the inter-spaces between interpretation and negotiation, performance and chance.’ By contrast, a video work entitled Where do the fishes go? by Vietnamese artist Jo Ngo, made in April 2020 when Ho Chi Minh City was in lockdown, transports viewers into a hallucinogenic vision of fish and whales swimming through scenes of a city emptied of human interaction. Accompanied by an otherworldly soundtrack, the video has a calming and poetic quality, but at the same time it is impossible to ignore environmental connotations of the natural world reclaiming man-made, urban spaces.
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Baliense artist Budi Agung Kuswara engages with historical narratives and archival imagery to create intricately detailed large-scale works that occupy the hazy, liminal space between dream and reality. For this exhibition, Kuswara presents a series of cyanotypes, which are created by assembling objects and materials onto light-sensitive photographic paper and exposing the composition to the sun. The artist then paints colour onto the blue printed image, imbuing a touch of opulence to his characters and also completing the physical connection between the body and sun. This sense of connectivity is central to Kuswara’s practice - and specifically his fascination with mystical science - through which the imagery of the past is revived in the present.
Filipino artist Nicole Coson’s print-making practice also meditates on the residues of time. She sees her depictions of verdant tropical landscapes as ‘architectural interventions...piercing walls with flourishing green windows’ that transport the viewer not only into a new geographical location, but also into a psychological space, reflecting on the power of imagery to awaken the memory and imagination. A similarly palimpsestic approach is central to Genevieve Chua’s image-making process. The Singaporean artist typically begins by photographing wild, natural landscapes in black and white, before painting onto the print, using colour to focus our gaze on a specific aspect or detail which might otherwise be overlooked. Also based in Singapore, Robert Zhao Renhui’s cerebral practice is preoccupied with the natural world and human intervention. In an ongoing series, he inserts a piece of human detritus into the jungle and then sets up a camera trap to record nature’s interactions. The resulting images are typically dark and closely-cropped with an intimate, voyeuristic quality that places the viewer in an almost uncomfortable position as an outsider looking in.
A collection of visually arresting artworks by Wawi Navarroza, come from the Filipino artist’s 2019 series entitled Self-Portraits & The Tropical Gothic. Navarroza creates formally staged scenes for the camera, deliberately controlling the lighting techniques and scenography to flatten the final image and fuse together disparate elements. In this way, the artist defines the Tropical Gothic as a process of syncretism that reflects on the incongruities of Filipino culture as a blend of East and Western influences, and also, on the performance and construction of self more generally.
Presented together, this collection of bold, visually arresting artworks offers a vivid form of escapism that not only transports audiences into the landscapes and stories of Southeast Asia, but also fosters a deeper understanding of, and appreciation for the region’s diverse, flourishing creativity.
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Tonight the Air is Warm : With Sarah Choo Jing, Nicole Coson, Genevieve Chua, Yee I- Lann, Budi Agung Kuswara, Wawi Navarroza, Jo Ngo, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Robert Zhao Renhui
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