Filed under: Writings
Art gallery@nanyang
Theres been an art gallery revamp at nanyang! It currently showcases all the Sec4 coursework done by the AEP students this year, as well as some old works by seniors.
These posters are designs of makeup products. I think its very cool how Theresa makes use of oriental objects and include a modern touch to them. Very cool! They would look very pretty in real. Also i love the design of the posters, the toned down colours add a quality of mystic in them 
This following piece was done by a senior and exhibited also at the 2007 AEP exhibition at NAFA.
She very cleverly uses double meanings on common food items to create her claywork, (eg. smoked salmon= salmon on a smoking pipe, pork chop=pig doing karate). Its nonsensical and fun!
Filed under: Writings
We visited an exhibition at NAFA sometime in August last year.
It was a display of various works by AEP students, and here are some photos of it, as well as comments on some works i liked.
I liked this piece of work alot. The painting was mounted on the ceiling of the small display area, because the painting was of people flying in the sky! The perspective captured by the artist was very interesting and different. The painting was very realistic, and made us viewers feel like there were people dropping on us!
There was also a very interesting variation of people, in gender, age and occupation. The expressions were also real and variated. The composition was good and every person in the painting was interesting to look at. Great work.
I like this work alot too
The above two pieces of painting were done by an ex-boy of SJI. The two paintings were inspired by his memories of his time in SJI and the images table and chair recall times he had with his friends and classmates who have added colour into his life.
These two paintings give a feel of eerie silence and melancholy. The artist portrayed very well his feelings of nostalgia towards his school. I think the colours (cold colours dark brown and blue) were very aptly used and added a quality of grandeur to the architecture, as well as a feeling of coldness. The shadings and lighting create the feeling of long space and distance, further portraying the feeling of emptiness. The lack of life in both paintings also added to the melancholy, the feeling of missing his school.
I am also rather amazed at the clean lines and precise construction of the architecture, which made it look very realistic.
This was another of the works i liked alot.
The idea behind this painting was gifts of love, how giving can bring alot of joy to others. Hence the artist painted various different gifts she received. I like this work because it is very personal to the artist and means something to her. Viewers can see her personality through this work. Another reason is also because of the realistic paintings, especially the painting of the poloroid, and the transparency of the class were done very well. The colours used are also very cohesive and projects a warm feeling of love, which is exactly the theme of the painting.
However, i feel that she could still have made something a focus of the work because i don’t know where to look when i see the painting. Maybe there could have been a central object, something which really means alot to her, to capture the attention of the viewer, then we see the rest of the objects.
There were many other great works in the exhibition, and it was good to see what other local students were doing There were some interesting stuff like self-made comical videos
(Btw, very sorry for the bad photography! photos taken by my pathetic handphone.)
Sometime in January this year, all of the art students were brought to the National Museum of Singapore for an exhibition on Greek Masterpieces.
It was certainly a huge eye-opener for me and we are certainly very lucky to be able to view all these great sculptures right in front of us, flew in all the way from The Lourve to Singapore. Imagine all the work they went through, transporting the heavy marble sculptures, making sure they are well-protected, and displaying them in the museum for our viewing pleasure.
All the near 130 works displayed were beautiful and just fascinating.
It is so amazing how the sculptors are able to produce such intricate, detailed works. Whats more, they are sculptures are made of marbles, something so hard and difficult to break, whats more carve in perfect precision and smoothen it. They are truly amazing pieces of art.
It is also amazing how they could sculpt humans into such perfect beings, with such perfect proportions and details. Look at the hair of the veiled woman in the last photo, and the beards and wrinkles of Platos (second photo) and Aristotle (third photo). They are all so lifelike and amazing.
It is cool how the ancient Greek sculptors could observe the beauty of the human body, and create sculptures that were super-human. Some of the males had muscles that were just scientifically impossible to have in real life, and some of the athletes were in positions that were humanly not possible.
As we learnt in a lecture prior to the visit, some of the sculptures despite looking so amazingly pretty were not possible in actual fact. because their knees and shoulders and hips were just pointing in awkward positions that we are just not able to do if not we will fall flat on our faces.
While we were there, we were supposed to sketch a few of the sculptures, so i picked the backview of
Ares- Greek God of War
I didn’t get to finish my pencil sketch so hes missing an arm and head and feet. hahaha.
It was just a rough sketch i did in half an hour so im already quite please with the result, just that i think his body is a bit fat, while the sculpture it self is just lean. His body also too short and head too small, probably because i was sketching while sitting on the floor.
Anyway i chose to do his backview because i thought it the profile was simple but interesting and the lighting and shadows cast on the sculpture were interesting to observe. There were not many lines but contours and curves that were challenging to capture well.
The visit to NMS was fruitful and a sure eye-opener. I still find the sculptors very amazing. Firstly, how do they carve marble its so hard! Secondly, how do they do it so perfectly! in proportion and detail and make it look so perfect and aesthetically pleasing? Thirdly, dont they make mistakes? and it will be devastating if they do because they cant undo their mistakes. Lastly, still, how do they do it! know exactly which angle and where to carve! when theres absolutely no room for mistakes to happen.
Ancient Greek sculptors are truly amazing people.
Filed under: Writings
First excursion for GAP! happened sometime in January last year, it was fun
We went around the CBD loooking at the abstract sculptures present there.
Honestly i didn’t really understand the sculptures, because they are more abstract than realistic, so heres my best interpretation of what i saw.
This bronze sculpture is of a woman lying down sideways. Actually thats all i figured. It was in the middle of a water feature, contrasting the solid-ness of the sculpture. It gives me a feeling of commanding presence.
I did some research and found that this sculpture was a homage to Sir Isaac Newton who discovered the law of gravity, made by Salvador Dali. It is represented by the hanging ball on his right hand. The artist also opened up the body and head of the sculpture and hung a heart and mind respectively in the space. This represents the two factors- ‘open-heart’ and ‘open-mind’ Isaac Newton possessed to discover such an important law of physics by the fall of an apple.
However other interpretations say that by the open torso, open, head, distorted back of the head, and cut up feet, Salvador Dali seems to imply that Isaac Newton has become a mere name in science and is completely stripped of his individuality.
This sculpture is named ‘Bird’ by Fernando Botero
It signifies the joy of living and power of optimism because birds are traditionally associated with peace and serenity. The fattened bird gives a comical feel to the sculpture and gives it a quality of humour. It brings a feeling of light-heartedness and happiness to the people who pass it by (:
