The Sight Oracle

Country and Town House Magazine advertisement

2012-01-19T00:19:00.000+08:00

Here is my recent Country and Town House Magazine ad...hmmm

Show at the London Art Fair 2012 this week

2012-01-17T23:32:00.001+08:00

I am showing at the fair with Stephanie Hoppen Gallery in booth G9. See www.londonartfair.co.uk

Group show in Kuala Lumpur with a Vinyl Toy

2011-12-02T23:52:00.002+08:00

I am showing at 18@8 SaveThe Planet at Wei-Ling Contemporary ( 2nd Dec 2011-5th Jan 2012) in Malaysia. Here is my entry...

Rajinder Singh

‘Occupy Nut’

Acrylic and oil paint,

varnish, bitumen and

collage on vinyl

Rajinder Singh

Hummin' Alor Star

Bitumen, acrylic,oil paint, varnish on unprimed canvas

122cm x 122cm

I believe that to save the planet we need to tackle the vice that consumes us all - avarice. When there is money to be made, the environment and workers go to hell - become expandable. Someone always gets rich and someone always get sick. Our degrading planet is linked inextricable to our greed.

A is for Avarice. A is for Alienate.

Avarice that makes for an unfair economic order around the world is destroying the planet and it is destroying us. To fight it I believe we need to see ourselves as communities, not commodities. We need to stay true to our differences.

My paintings depict this destruction, not just in our planet but in our communities, in our identities.

Robonut power is the power of A - to accommodate, adjust, adapt and affirm. To save the planet, Robonut, brings affirmation to our identities and to our differences. Robonut wants to be less like him (automatons; cogs). To Robonut, respecting diversity comes from respecting biodiversity which in turns shouts the message - stopping hurting Mother Nature for profit.

Solo in Melbourne Nov 2011

2011-12-02T22:57:00.001+08:00

Here's an Art Guide entry for my recent solo in Australia.

Interchange: the Tribute edition

2011-12-02T22:06:00.002+08:00

Here is a group exhibition I am in with Patrick Storey, Lynn Lu and Andy Yang.

My first major exhibition in London opens tomorrow...

2011-10-05T07:49:00.001+08:00

Ya-ad - change of dates

2011-09-22T07:05:00.003+08:00

A finalist in an art competition? Cool?!

2011-09-21T07:06:00.006+08:00

Top winners, 3rd ward opencall out of Brooklyn New York... I got a look in! See below.

Alan Gaynor	Alice Odilon	Alice Rodriguez	Amanda Roberts	Ashley Campbell
Bartosz Sikorski	Caridad Sola	Craig Hudson	Daisy Chen	Elizabeth Gill
Emese Szabo	Emi Brady	Esteban Figueroa	Ginny Mangrum	Giordano Cipriani
Hannah O'Hara	Henry Fernando	Ian Atkinson	Jamie Masters	Johnny Tang
Jonathan Wang	Jonny Briggs	Jwalant Mahadevwala	Karie Titus	Kat Ryals
Katherine Mann	Kevin Arnold	Kevin Ewing	Kitty Lin	Laura Alexander
Lauren Kalman	Michael Schmidt	Michelle Hamer	Mike Brown	MJ Miller
Nicolas Vionnet	Nicole Dextras	Nicole Salimbene	Nikki Romanello	Patricia Ridenour
Patricia Gutierrez	Priscilla Aleman	Rajinder Singh	Renata Cione	Ruey Shiann Shyu
Ryan Raffa	Sara Keith	Talita Gutierrez	Tang Kwok-hin	Yvette Kaiser Smith

I guess it is my installation work that will make any kind of mark..

Ya-ad opens end of Oct in ICAS Singapore

2011-09-21T06:55:00.001+08:00

After finishing his MAFA at LaSalle School of Fine Arts, Rajinder moved to
London. Working out of his studios in Fulham, West London, he concentrated on
making works that are fragile; which are still until disrupted, on a verge of
something- perched on a precipice. There has been trauma and it has changed
everything and it is going to change again. Rajinder’s new installations are
vulnerable to the slight alteration of space around them. The smallest movement
can cause the works to alter. They sit quietly, subtly - in anticipation. The
material, the positioning and the viewer’s senses are vital. Whether the viewer
chooses to or not, if they are even aware, the viewers’ movements can and do
disrupt the work. Change is inevitable. Ya-ad is such an installation. It is created
mainly with talc powder which is allowed gently to sift onto walls that are not
entirely smooth.
Rajinder's background in philosophy and mathematics is the driving force behind
his art practice. He is interested in the possibilities of knowledge outside the
domain of traditional paradigms. Rajinder's research today is based on sculptural
interventions situated somewhere between the architectural space and the
materials he uses to shape it. "I am interested in sculptures that are perched in
between form and formlessness, either leaking away or resolutely building some
potential for site-specific systems of knowings." Rajinder sets out to traumatise
the body through disrupted, dislocated architectural spaces forcing the viewer to
pause and question certitudes, abandoning for a short moment the subjectivity
and significance of built space.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN CONTEMPORARY ART COLLECTING ART

2011-06-16T17:36:00.001+08:00

Here is an article about a radio interview with Valentine Willie,owner of VWFA galleries in South East Asia on Art Radar Journal (see here). One of my paintings is shown. This particular painting has been in a BBC series on art and in several other magazine articles. Cool....

Political correctness enemy of good art says Valentine Willie – BFM podcast

Posted on February 23, 2011

SOUTHEAST ASIAN CONTEMPORARY ART COLLECTING ART

In a June 2010 podcasted interview with Malaysian business station BFM, Valentine Willie, founder of Southeast Asian-based gallery Valentine Willie Fine Art, Willie explains how artworks are priced, why international reputations aren’t always necessary for artists and why he would sack the staff of The National Art Gallery of Malaysia.

WONG Hoy Cheong, In search of faraway places (from 'Migrants' series), 1996, charcoal, photocopy transfer and collage on paper scroll, three panels: 204.5 x 151cm (each); 204.5 x 453cm (overall). Image from visualarts.qld.gov.au.

Click below to listen to the interview (26m:34s), or listen to it on BFM.

We’ve selected a few choice quotes to give you an idea of why we think this interview is an oldie but a goodie…

Valentine Willie on Southeast Asian contemporary art:

You know, compared to prices in China, Southeast Asia’s relatively cheap and it’s new. … With Southeast Asia there’s ten little countries that have a very different take on things and that makes for an interesting culture to look at and to collect.

Gallery view, Iskandar Malaysia Contemporary Art Show (Imcas), 2009, artwork from Farouk Khan collection. Image from plushasia.com.

Valentine Willie on pricing art:

There is no formula [for pricing a piece of art]. Size is one factor, the artist’s reputation is another factor, how long [the artist has] been in the business is a factor, many things.

[How much the artist's last piece of art sold for is] a kind of benchmark. You work around that figure. It doesn’t have to match that.

Yes, it’s quite … common practice [for artists to raise their price by ten to fifteen percent every year] but also healthier. In the last three [or] four years, before the recession, prices were going up by leaps and bounds, by a thousand percent. That was the art boom and [it was] not healthy, not sustainable.

Firstly you must dispel this idea that price has anything to do with quality. Price is really a function of the market itself, supply and demand, who is in vogue now, who is popular now. We, like every other kind of lifestyle industry, are susceptible to trends and hype as much as the next person. So, firstly, you need to dispel that because [an artwork has] a lower price, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s worse. By the same token, it works the other way.

Chong Siew Ying, 'Trace', 2002, oil on vellum, 60 x 400 cm. Image from vwfa.net.

Valentine Willie on international reputation:

There’s this terrible terrible standard that we hold not only artists to, that they must make it big overseas, as if that is the only validation. What about domestic [recognition]? I mean, [some Malaysian artists] are hugely successful here and that’s plenty enough for most artists. They don’t need to be showing in MoMA and Tate to validate what they do and we also shouldn’t use that as a kind of necessary benchmark.

I’m not discouraging artists from going [overseas]. In fact, I try to encourage them to show overseas to expand their audience. What we shouldn’t do is make that the be all and end all of a career. Some artists are very happy just selling and showing in Malaysia and for very good reason because they deal with Malaysia, they deal with a particular audience.

Valentine Willie on Malaysian art institutions:

I haven’t been [to The National Art Gallery of Malaysia] … for almost a year, mainly because there isn’t anything there that I want to go and see. They haven’t really made the effort to engage with the public or do something interesting. It’s a shame because they do have a collection that deserves to be seen. I’d sack the lot of them and get new people to run it.

There is a lot of [figurative work] in The National Art Gallery but I think in the next few years they’re not going to surface… because it ‘provokes’, I suppose, which is really the function of art. It should provoke,… otherwise why bother. But then, you know, [it's a] government institution.

Rajinder Singh, 'Muse I, 2007, mixed media on canvas, 74"x 65", in the collection of Aliya and Farouk Khan. Image from sightoracle.blogspot.com.

Valentine Willie on what to look for in an artwork:

Firstly, obviously with any artist you look for the skill: Can they paint? Do they understand colour? Can they draw a straight line? And apart from that, you look at… what are the things they’re painting? Why are they painting what they paint? Is it an interesting question? Is there something I should re-look at?

Trappole - A group exhibition in Singapore

2011-06-08T20:38:00.000+08:00

An article on Trappole ( a group exhibtion I co-curated and participated in) at ArtVocate (http://artvocate.tv/2010/11/17/trappole-snared-by-a-wiley-curator/)

TRAPPOLE – snared by a wiley curator.

This last Monday, I attended an art opening with a difference: one night only, nothing for sale, no obvious art on the walls and an unsettling atmosphere. What had happened? I had been ‘trapped’ by curator Daniela Beltrani, a woman bent on producing an exhibition that perturbs, excites, provokes and disrupts the bodily experience we’ve come to expect during our polite, run of the mill art openings.

With walls leaning against the walls, mega-ants menacing the artworks and malodorous installations, I think the show succeeded.

A lot of uber-contemporary, deeply-thought-out art exhibitions can appear to be the last bastions of elitism, catering only to the miniscule population in any one town who has studied Critical Theory, holds a MA or PhD in Art Theory and generally swims in those waters…you know who I mean. Not that I am anti-intellectualism, at all, I am one of those people, but I also hold close the idea that contemporary art cannot be purely about preaching to the converted. So to have a thoroughly high-brow premise that was well presented, accessible, and witty was refreshing (and depressingly rare).

The exhibition was a collection of pieces from five Singapore-based artists – not a collaboration as such, but an open-minded exploration of the ideas surrounding disrupting our bodily experience and expectations.

Rajinder Singh, a noted Singaporean painter who broke his own mold by scattering pre-fab walls across the space which had been weathered and exposed to life on the streets of Singapore. (Whilst these streets aren’t exactly ‘mean streets’ one wall did get knocked over and damaged, and one was slightly graffitti’d.) Strewn across the space, propped against the actual gallery walls, they were monumental, and made the first impression that this wasn’t going to be the usual polite affair. The central space was divided into three by these walls on their side around which people milled and it was the first time I’ve actually seen someone put their drink down on an artwork and not be swooped down on by a black-clad assistant.

Kenneth Feinstein produced a witty projection of super-sized ants marching endlessly upwards on one of Rajinder’s wall slabs, the forgettable permanent nuisance of the tropics rendered massive and portentous by the difference in scale.

Matthew Bax’s piece was one of the subtlest works of the evening – a series of paper signs taped onto bare, crisply white walls bearing the words “Caution – Wet Paint”. Another ping in the growing sense that it was all a bit wrong maybe, until you got the joke – having sprung away from the walls for fear of ruining hair and clothes it became clear that there was not fresh paint, for what paint truly doesn’t smell, even a little bit?

Ezzam Rahman complemented a lightly abstract video meditation on tea with an installation of a little tea-station, complete with foam cups and refreshments – I saw several guests help themselves, either unknowingly completing the artwork or deliberately accepting its premise. Either way, knowing or not, it was accepted as part of the strange evening.

Finally, the piece that confused me most was that by Zaki Razak, who had filled a plug-in- the-wall aromatiser with something, I have no idea what, but all at once I was struck by the smell of burnt popcorn. Other guests hazarded guesses at laksa, or over-cooked red-bean soup, and one ventured it smelt delicious whereas I was wrinkling my nose at it. Perhaps this is why Matthew didn’t complete his illusion with an open tin of Dulux behind a wall somewhere, as that may have overpowered Zaki’s piece. For me, this was the most potent moment of the show – the sense of smell is not often used in exhibitions, and standing where I was, eg unknowingly almost right on top of the diffuser, I was thrown off balance, torn between being hungry and wanting to prevent a fire from burning foodstuffs.

The venue was a new gallery in the center of town, a beautifully restored, mid-century block of office and retail space, providing an elegantly Singaporean take on the white cube. All very proper and smart, however the area of space allotted to this exhibition was that just by the door – masking tape prevented inquisitive guests from wandering into the existing

exhibition, again creating a sense of something that broke with our understanding of what this opening was going to be.

For once nothing was for sale – you couldn’t have bought anything even if you’d wanted to, and that was also a break with the norm. Each artist generously gave their time and materials to create this event, and Daniela used that to bring each guest a little closer to something focusing on art only, not commerce or networking or branding. Not everyone enjoyed the show – several guests were just happy for a party on a Monday night, but at least they had been given the opportunity to understand why they weren’t keen, and had thought about the overall concept. It wasn’t an impenetrable wall of education and self-reference that held them from enjoying the experience, more a personal inclination towards other forms of art.

For myself, I had gone not really knowing what to expect, beyond perhaps a typical self-funded opening, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quiet thought and cohesion of the show. No one piece fought with the others, there was space enough for each to exist and make its point. Apparently there had been nine artists lined up, four of whom fell by the wayside during planning, but I think the space was a good fit for five.

I’d like to see more of this kind of experimental, brave, non-commercial art happening here in Singapore. Oh, did I mention accessible? Not hiding behind walls of pretension and terms found only in late C20th art theory primers, but in your face, open, honest, provocative and generous offerings for everyone.

1000 Living Painters

2011-06-08T20:17:00.000+08:00

I am mentioned on a compendium of contemporary painters based out of Amsterdam for 2010. Only other South Asian artist mentioned I believe is Milenko Pravacki, the former dean of fine arts at LaSalle College of Arts.

An interview at Ninunina

2011-05-29T22:46:00.001+08:00

See http://ninunina.com/2011/02/14/rajinder-singh-art/

LASALLE SHOW 2011

2011-05-29T22:05:00.001+08:00

I am part of the above exhibition currently on in Singapore till June 9th 2011.

It reminded me of my work last year captured partially by studio wall photo below:

Assemblage exhibition

2011-05-29T21:55:00.002+08:00

I had a show in Singapore recently ( in absentia) - a kind of a mid career retrospective.. perhaps a little early but those were the words that were bandied about and advertised by my agent..

It was a big hit!

Extended for a week

2010-11-30T14:51:00.001+08:00

The Cause & Defect exhibition has been extended for another week to Monday 6th of December 2010

see www.causedefect.com

Interview with Rajinder Singh in TimeOut Singapore

2010-11-30T09:54:00.000+08:00

I like the idea of making art about the imperfections of painting. What is it about mistakes which can make art-work even more human?

Mistakes are finished paintings. I get busy making mistakes when I paint. The mistakes lead me to exciting new places. Error is the bossom buddy of my craft.

When we commit an error, we become, if only for a fraction of a second, a little off-balance, a little less sure, a little traumatized, a little schizophrenic and in my opinion a little more human and a little less machine…

Name one famous artistic mistake you wish you had made.

I want to have made the mistake of painting my figures the way Francis Bacon famously did. I want to have made the mistakes that Henri Cartier-Bresson made when he took his beautifully composed photographs. I want to have traipsed the error-prone path of Cy Twomboly. Such is my affliction.

What effect has being a Dad have on you and your artistic method. Is it harder to tear yourself away to work?

I guess I am calmer, a little less brazen, a lot more patient since becoming a dad. My little Rekha mucks about helping me mix colors in my studio quite a lot. I am constantly prying brushes from her tiny fingers and wiping paint off her face. She is slowly and surely helping me achieve that calm I yearn to finally accept with grace my many mistakes. Work therefore is home and home is work. The two have become inseparable in Rekha’s vigilant presence.

How does your residency in Paris come through in this work?

The idea behind Cause & Defect was borne in Montparnasse in Paris. Print presses run a set of trials before going into full print. These test prints caught my eye. They had a certain defective beauty of their own. This got me thinking about highlighting the defective rather than attempting for perfection and sorely accepting the mistakes. It is like making the negative spaces prominent – the underside of a chair, the hole that makes a cup etc.

Cause & Defect Exhibition at Gajah Gallery

2010-11-29T23:11:00.000+08:00

Cause & Defect Exhibition at Gajah Gallery

2010-11-23T00:55:00.002+08:00

Go to www.causedefect.com

Gajah Gallery Singapore Presents: Rajinder Singh - Cause and Defect Thurs, 25th Nov 2010, 7pm

2010-11-09T23:04:00.003+08:00

My last show here in Asia for a bit. Come!

A group exhibition in Singapore

2010-11-09T10:42:00.000+08:00

I am part of a group exhibition in Singapore at the Art Trove gallery. The exhibition, Trappolle, is a one day flash-show of several installations by some prominent artists in town. Here is the invite.

Curio opening at the Chinese House Gallery, Phnom Penh

2010-11-09T10:05:00.001+08:00

Cambodia is an unusual place to exhibit. The Chinese House is not really the quintessential art space. But both my agent and I agreed that Cambodia and the Chinese House made for a perfect environment for the Curio series of paintings. The collection depicts aged walls in Malaya 100 years ago. The collection is based on a certain trace of the formless, of reducing potentialities through entropic degradation over time. The collection refers to an unusual alter-history of Malaya when it was in the process of becoming. Cambodia and Chinese House provides a remarkable setting for this.

Curio opened at The Chinese House on a Sat evening. We had a-capella renditions of some French and Khmer songs, a visiting UN delegation, a lot of French people and even two Malaysians.

A mural in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2010-11-08T23:45:00.004+08:00

I am working closely with a charity organisation called PSE in Cambodia that helps Phnom Penh's poor children. I have a special relationship with this particular organisation. They have done wonders. Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (PSE) which translates to 'For a Child's smile' is committed to helping children.

I worked with 45 kids at the charity's huge school in Phnom Penh to paint a mural. Here it is. It was an amazing experience.

The school accommodates almost 6000 children and has a department that actively goes out to engage with kids of the poorest families to join the school.

I hope to continue working with this particular charitable organisation for I subscribe to their priorities. See http://genuine-joy.blogspot.com/ - a blog I recently set up to track my work with PSE.

An exhibition in Cambodia

2010-10-29T12:27:00.000+08:00

Here is a poster for the event in Cambodia.

An exhibition in Cambodia

2010-10-29T12:24:00.000+08:00

I am travelling to Cambodia for a solo showing of my latest collection, Curio. Here is the invite.