World Event Young Artists Launches this Sept! This month we look into the remaining SG representatives for WEYA’12

World Event Young Artists (WEYA’12) will kick of in 2 days from 7th September  to 16th September at Nottingham, England! For both August and September’s artist of the month feature, SCYA looks into the rest of the WEYA – SG finalists; of Poets, Artists & Film-makers!

Kamarul

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.

People, People, People (Facial Codes series)
Selected work for WEYA
Year: 2011
Medium: Photograph
Dimension: 70cm x 100cm

I’m currently serving the national and I can’t wait for it to end in a year time so I can start school at NTU. I graduated from Republic Polytechnic and I want to give a shout out to my course, Diploma in Design for Interactivity! Basically, I’m more of a visual artist and really like working hands-on then on the computer. 

2. How did art get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?
Basically, the love and passion for the art in general came when during my studies in Republic polytechnic. I found out that I could relate to the arts easily and I started expressing myself through different mediums and begin experimentation ( or just having fun). If I have a genre in my work, I would choose Rock & Roll.

3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?
The internet is my inspiration. The world, the people I met, artworks I’ve seen, basically anything that I’ve experienced in my life would be my inspiration. Each phase of my life have a part to play during the process of my art creation.

4. How do you see your place in the arts and what are your main aims and hopes for yourself as an artist in the arts scene?

Monk (Facial Codes series)
Year: 2011
Medium: Photograph
Dimension: 50cm x 50cm

I really hope that I could still do art even when I’m in my golden years of age. Obviously, I want to be a part of Singapore’s ever growing art scene and to be recognized as an artist in Singapore. It would be a dream come true if I could pursue art full time.

5. Has this influenced your art or your goals in life in any way?

Well, I’ve always believed that life should be about doing things that keeps you alive and not to be a prison of your own life. With that being said, if I feel like doing my art in a certain way, i would do it. If that makes me happy, then I would do it.

6. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think will WEYA give you exposure in your artistic career?
It’s a wonderful opportunity for me to be able to show my works in WEYA, knowing that my work will be seen by different people and audiences who can relate or understand; and most likely accept art openly. WEYA has also given me a chance to meet other people who share the same interests and probably bring about potential networking collaborations.

James Khoo

1. Tell us a bit about yourself

I’m a filmmaker who graduated last year from the Puttnam School of Film at LASALLE College of the Arts. Currently I’ve been busy running a production company, Pangolin Films, which I’ve started up this year with a couple of my classmates.

2. How did art/poetry/performance/film get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?

I stumbled into film-making by accident in 2005 when I went for an audition to be an extra on a docu-drama series but instead of getting a role, the executive producer offered the role of the production coordinator. It was from there that I developed an interest for the power of storytelling through film and how it was able to capture the humanity of others and in the process of filming, discover your own humanity. I tend to gravitate towards films that are concerned with the human spirit which I have aimed to portray in my work.

 

3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?

Hentak Kaki (Narrative)
Selected Work for WEYA | Film Still
Year: 2011
Best Film Award – Singapore Short Film Category

Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa. They had strong, memorable characters that had great depth in their humanity.

 

4. How do you see your place in the arts and what are your main aims and hopes for yourself as an artist in the arts scene?

As a filmmaker, I wish to be a unifying force in tying together the industry and collaborating with as many other filmmakers as possible thereby creating both an environment of support and to push the boundaries of the art forward in Singapore.

 5. Has this influenced your art or your goals in life in any way?

As an artist, I always feel the need to give back and to contribute to the community and sometimes that community is one of filmmakers.

 

6. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think will WEYA give you exposure in your artistic career?

I am excited to be able to attend an international event and I hope that WEYA will present unique opportunities for inspiration and future collaborative efforts both with the Singapore artists or the other international participants.

Ray Pang Yoong Hui (Film-maker)

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.
Making films is a catharsis for me. I consider myself as an optimist

2. How did film get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?
Since young i love to tell stories with characters that i have imagine. My passion for film grew at 18 when i chooses to major in film-making. Since then, i got addicted using film as a median to tell stories.I love to explore the dark side of human thoughts, the faith and love. My topics are faith, betrayal and brotherhood.

3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?

THE TEAM (Narrative)
Selected Work for WEYA | Film Still
Year: 2011

Life is my source of inspiration when making films. Families, friends and incidents that have affected my beliefs usually will evoke me to tell a story to an audience.

4. How do you see your place in the arts and what are your main aims and hopes for yourself as an artist in the arts scene?
As a filmmaker, i wish to continue making films that can make the world a better place. Using this tool to share what i see and believe for the greater good of mankind and our beautiful earth. I hope to use it as a positive propaganda.

5. Has this influenced your art or your goals in life in any way?
The release of emotions are expressed from my films with an underlying message that had influenced the way i tell stories and my life. Every films i made, opens up my mind and soul to see the world in a different perspective. A journey that one must take to reflect and encounter.

6. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think will WEYA give you exposure in your artistic career?
Being able to attend a world event in a foreign country is exciting and mysterious for me. An art event filled with mixed cultural creatives is definitely an once in a lifetime exposure that i look forward to. It’s like meeting walking art in person. I’m very excited to meet and get to know as many artists and their influences on their works.

Lee Jing Yan

1. Tell us a bit about yourself

Spoken Word Poet: Lee Jing Yan
Representative for WEYA (SG)

My name is Lee Jing Yan. I’m 21 years old, born and raised in Singapore, about to commence studies at University College London as a law student.

2. How did art/poetry/performance/film get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?
A little over a year ago I went for a writer’s gathering at the Writer’s Centre called ‘Soundup!’. It was my first taste of spoken word poetry. After that, I started writing my own poems with the intention of performing them. In July 2011, I participated in and won my first poetry slam, the Singapore National Poetry Slam.  Since then, I’ve been writing and performing and getting involved in artistic projects with fellow writers and artists I’ve met along the way. Spoken word is, to me, the oldest form of storytelling. Before writing, before printing, there was the oral tradition. People told stories and entertained each other with their voices. In fact, rhymes were invented as a mnemonic device for town criers and storytelling to remember their lines. In recent years, Spoken Word has been revived as a performance genre, thanks to the rising popularity of events like Poetry Slams. Spoken Word is bigger than Poetry Slam, though, which is something not many people understand. There is so much possibility with spoken word than is allowed in the format of Poetry Slam, beloved as it is. In my own work I’m trying to break free of any ‘poetry slam format’ and try new ways of moving people with my voice and my words.

3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?
I have a few favourite poets who have influenced my writing. There are spoken word poets like Buddy Wakefield and Derrick Brown who I admire, but also page poets like Timothy Donnelly, Richard Siken and Arda Collins, who I find very influential in my own writing, be it spoken word or page poetry.

4. How do you see your place in the arts and what are your main aims and hopes for yourself as an artist in the arts scene?
I don’t really see myself as an artist. Not yet, at least. At this stage I’m still very young, and very much doing this for my own pleasure. My main hope is that I get better and better at what I do, of course. As long as you’re good at what you do, people will eventually notice. I hope to keep writing and performing as I move on with university and the rest of my life. I have no intentions of becoming a full-time writer or performer. It seems a little presumptuous at this point.

5. Has this influenced your art or your goals in life in any way?
I choose to take art as it is, without worrying about what people think of me, or whether enough people know about me. Like I mentioned before, focus on your own craft, and the audiences will come. That’s been my own experience in the industry anyway, and it’s the reason I’m pretty relaxed about the whole thing. I don’t see the point in stressing myself out. That, I think, gives me the freedom to really push myself artistically and discover new places and things within my own work.

6. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think will WEYA give you exposure in your artistic career?
WEYA is a great opportunity for me to meet other like-minded people in art, which is something that is difficult in a place like Singapore, where the literary scene, and more specifically, the spoken word scene, is so small. It’s sometimes difficult to get a grasp of the whole spectrum of possibilities within an artistic genre when you have so few dedicated practitioners. I’m sure WEYA will open my eyes to new possibilities, and I’m excited to see how the experience will affect my artistic output.

Marc Nair

1. Tell us a bit about yourself

Spoken Poet: Marc Nair
Representative for WEYA (SG)

I’m a full time writer and sometime photographer. I have published two books of poetry and help to run the poetry slam in Singapore.

2. How did poetry get into your life?

I always loved to read. I think it started with my mother reading to me when I was a baby. When I grew older I found poetry to come almost naturally to me as a medium of artistic expression.

3. Can you describe your works/artistic genre?

I write a lot of observational poems that contain both real and imagined narratives. I think my photographs follow the same ethos, where themes lie just under the surface of spectacle.

4. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?

In general, the world. In particular, people who have bits of poetry in their words, I like to riff ideas and lines from such conversations.

5. How do you see your place in the arts and what are your main aims and hopes for yourself as an artist in the arts scene?

Poetry hasn’t always had a mass influence in Singapore, although there have always been a healthy number of poets writing and publishing. I do hope this will change eventually and poetry will come to be accepted as something that the man on the street can understand and even appreciate.

Has this influenced your art or your goals in life in any way?

It’s influenced me enough to want to leave a full time teaching job and want to pursue writing as a sustainable lifestyle.

6. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA?

It’s a massive undertaking that WEYA is embarking on, and I’m stoked to meet artists from every walk of art the world over.

7. How do you think will WEYA give you exposure in your artistic career?

I’m hoping to meet like-minded poets and artists and build opportunities to travel to teach and share poetry in different countries.

Check out Marc’s work, Cherry (2011) from this link here.

Shah Rizzal

1. Tell us a bit about yourself

This is Home
Selected Work for WEYA
Year: 2011
Medium: Installation

I am a 27 year-old male Singaporean artist that enjoys the quirks of art along with its seriousness. I am a self-taught aerosol artist and formally trained in sculpture and painting at Lasalle College of the Arts with an BA Hons Degree.

2. How did art(photography) get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?

I believe that we are all born artists. I found that part of me only later at the age of 13 through graffiti art. I owe a lot to graffiti art for it thought me to be more aware of my surroundings and appreciate them as possible works of art or even as it is. I refuse to be categorized as a certain kind of artist within certain discipline because i love to play with all kinds of mediums for my projected artistic outcome; be it performance, mural, sculpture, video, photography or painting.

3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?

My inspiration is my environment, the artists around me, my partner and the random passerby.

4. How do you see your place in the arts and what are your main aims and hopes for yourself as an artist in the arts scene?

This is Home
Selected Work for WEYA | Film Still
Year: 2011
Medium: Installation

My works deal with social issue and interacts with the community at most times. In terms of an art career, i see the importance of reach, where my ideas will get international attention. Art to me is about sharing our knowledge, comprehension and its thesis to the world.

Has this influenced your art or your goals in life in any way?

Yes, I have always thought that art is a very important part of life.

5. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think WEYA will give you exposure in your artistic career?

I think my participation in WEYA will give me the chance to share my philosophy of life with other artist around the globe.

Denise Hughes Yap

1. Tell us a bit about yourself

Regeneration 03 (Series)
Year: 2009
Medium: Photography / Inkjet prints

I was born and raised in Singapore and had a very liberal upbringing with almost no rules nor pressure for academic success. I believe that is partly responsible for my highly inquisitive nature and curiosity about almost anything and everything. I have just recently graduated from NTU.

2. How did art(photography) get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?

After junior college, I considered majoring in English, but decided to try my hand at something completely new and challenging. I enrolled in NTU’s School of Art, Design & Media, thinking to major in Visual Communications. However, in my first year, I did a project on the nine years abandoned Tang Dynasty City (which was torn down a year after my project). The project received very positive feedback and I thoroughly enjoyed the storytelling abilities that the camera had to offer. Thus, I completed my BFA with a specialisation in photography.

I view art and photography as an extremely intimate performative process, and it has become a form of catharsis for much of my emotions and critical thinking. My works are mainly self-portraits, though my most recent body of work, Physical Abstractions, uses old family photographs, found images and lots of bananas.

3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)? 

Regeneration 05 (Series)
Selected work for WEYA
Year: 2009
Medium: Photography / Inkjet prints

I am greatly influenced and inspired by my surroundings. I love people watching and discovering the quirks of strangers. Books on history, culture and theory are the best brain food for me. Edward Said’s Orientalism as well as post-colonial writings have had a huge impact in the direction of my work.

For artists, I greatly admire the works of Francesca Woodman, Nikki S. Lee and Wim Delvoye.

4. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think will WEYA give you exposure in your artistic career?

WEYA is a perfect opportunity and platform for young artists. I foresee it leading to future collaborations, exhibitions and possibly jobs.

Tay Questal

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.

It’s the Same #5 (Series)
Selected Work for WEYA
Year: 2011
Medium: Embroidery on Bahama Voile and newspaper
Dimensions: 29cm x 36cm

Hi, I’m Questal. I have recently graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts with a degree in Fine Arts and currently work at Esplanade as a visual arts assistant.

2. How did art get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?
I think art, in its most general term, has always been a part of my life but it’s not until I was 16 years of age that I started to consider it seriously, and that I could perhaps pursue art as a career. I think most people seek to find connection with someone or something, and I found mine with art. As for my work per se, it seems I’ve grown quite fond of using geometric shapes, color and repetition and highly laborious methods of making over the years.

3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?
My inspirations come from pretty much anything actually. But I’m usually drawn to things that are not as easily understood; people, as a whole, are especially intriguing to me. I would say people are my main source of inspiration above other things.

4. How do you see your place in the arts and what are your main aims and hopes for yourself as an artist in the arts scene? Has this influenced your art or your goals in life in any way?
There’s still so much to learn, so much more to experience you know? It’s difficult to say where I’ll end up in my line of work, but it’ll be great if I can continue to do what I do. For now, I have plans to go for residencies from time to time, score jobs that allow me to be creative. It will be delighting if I could do a show once in awhile and sell a few pieces of work along the way. What I’m really after is the creative process/input.

5. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think WEYA will give you exposure in your artistic career?
I’m just really grateful and glad to be a part of this. I’m most excited about meeting artists from all over the world; I believe there is much to learn and to be inspired by, and even be challenged, to stretch my artistic abilities.

Rebecca Wang

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Drawing and making models were always things I love to do and I guess I was always slightly above average at them in primary and secondary school. But back then I never thought I will be good enough to be an artist one day. Moreover I was rejected from my junior college art department thrice before gaining acceptance and I had absolutely no clue about contemporary art before I entered the class. Looking back, I think studying and making art helped me to mature a lot over the past few years. And I am very grateful to Mr Chia Wei Hou to open up this wonderful world to me and guide me in the process.

2. How did art get into your life? Can you describe your works/artistic genre?

Untitled (The leaf and the light)
Selected Work for WEYA
Year: 2011
Medium: Installation

In junior college, I thought that I would be doing photography dealing with the social landscape of Singapore for the rest of my life but while studying at Central Saint Martins in London, I decided that it was too early to limit myself and wanted to experiment more. I chose to embark on projects that I am most daunted by, materials that I am unfamiliar with and results that are entirely uncertain. I am currently going on to do my BA at Slade School of Fine Art soon and I think this is a great time to explore various themes and styles. You can see find a range of works that are quite different from the piece I am exhibiting at http://beccawangcy.tumblr.com/

I strongly believe in the arts’ redemptive powers, whether is it through the creation or appreciation. Ultimately I hope that my works resonates with people. Also I wish to share this joy I found in art with more people regardless of financial or social circumstances through eduction and outreach.

 3. Who or what is your inspiration(s)?

“Happiness Is A Can Of Campbell’s Soup” And Other Stories
Year: 2012
Medium: Photography/ Prints

I think one of fine art’s roles today is to discuss intrinsic questions in life such as identity and relationships. Although our survival does not pivot unpinned the intangible feelings and thoughts, abject nonchalance of them may lead to a potentially unfulfilled existence. Artists I admire includes Krzystof Wodiczko from Poland who deals with issues such as conflict and trauma through the use of large scale video projections on architectural monuments; Rirkrit Tiravanija from Thailand who questions the nature of art and art world itself through creating situations for audience interaction, and providing them with generosity and kindness; and also Felix Gonzales-Torres whose works stand out by their thoughtfulness, simplicity and poetry.  Other than artists, I am also very much inspired by film directors such as Adam Curtis, Wong Kar Wai and Tsai Ming Liang; and writers such as Sigmund Freud and Milan Kundera.

4. What are your thoughts about participating in WEYA? How do you think WEYA will give you exposure in your artistic career?

I am very excited to be participating in WEYA. It is an amazing opportunity to meet other young artists all over the world and learn about other art forms. I’m looking forward to getting inspired just before school term starts this September!

About scyablog

Singapore Contemporary Young Artists Project (SCYA) is a non-profit Art Society that highlights Contemporary Art by Young Artists in Singapore through several platforms in exhibitions, websites, talks, workshops & commissioned services. SCYA was initiated by Jacquelyn Soo who is an artist, curator and director for SCYA. SCYA has over 10 members in the society contributing ideas, activities to support the organisation. SCYA represents up to 70 Singaporean/PR Artists in their works. SCYA launched their first project in Nov 2008 with a website collaboration with FIVEFOOTWAY that featured 23 Contemporary Young Artists Portfolios on an interactive website. Since then, SCYA have had several collaborations and events organised with corporations, government institutions, NGOS and education institutions, Please visit our website for more details: www.contemporaryart.sg Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SingaporeContemporaryYoungArtists Thank you!

View all posts by scyablog →