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Time Doesn't Wait For anGie seah

BySarah-Tabea Sammel
Time Doesn't Wait For anGie seah

anGie seah 'We Will Live Forever'

Chan + Hori Contemporary present anGie seah’s new solo exhibition 'We Will Live Forever' from 09 November – 3 December 2017.

breathe – illumination – mind

Working across installations, drawings, textile print, photography, audio-visuals, and performance, seah's show includes all forms of her art media, with each piece complimenting another. Entering the gallery feels like walking into the artist’s cosy and innermost world of reflections and momentum in time. Tick-tick-tick-go the many clocks on her time mediating wood pieces, with which seah contemplates on deadlines, time pressure, thresholds, and life cycles. Meanwhile, drawings and pottery refer to patience and breathing space, whilst ladders point the way of thoughts.

Throughout her work, seah expresses compassion for the constantly present friction between perseverance and believing – possibly in the process, in community, or in the world the artist shares with us, with family, religion, and society at its core.

All works have been created at the 1979 Singapore-born artist's home. Cushion prints are specially selected for this exhibition and won’t be used again. The comfort of the home becomes shared space of mind, practice and questions about identity. Key pieces ask about gender bias and the role of faith in daily life.

The title of her show leans on the Islamic reading of Jonah’s swallowing by the whale, from which he transcends to new shores, whilst balancing his existence within society. Throughout her work, seah expresses compassion for the constantly present friction between perseverance and believing – possibly in the process, in community, or in the world the artist shares with us, with family, religion, and society at its core.

"Colours of dream" (2012) by anGie seah

The pieces hold the stories of their creation, resonating with seah’s leading motifs.

Amidst the different media displays hangs a punching bag; black print on white textile. It shows the abstract and cartoonish image of a girl, grinding her teeth on the one side, and the counter image of a little tooth-fletching boy on the other. Seah remarks satirically and critically on the concept of gender roles. The quiet, well-behaved girl, and the little, outspokenness permitted, yet just as compressed boy become loudly voiced topic of current affairs, which she demands us to punch.

The show is personal. The pieces hold the stories of their creation, resonating with seah’s leading motifs. Whilst the wooden clocks are marked by hammering one piece onto another, just like the urgency of charging hours, the pottery contains the sturdiness of many hours of patient work that turned fragile matter into solid form, and the drawings, photography, video, and textiles appear as external décor of a mind’s interior, addressing our senses of self in the form of living-room regulars.

Limited cushion motif - "We Will Live Forever" (2017) by anGie seah

The artist observes the crowd at the opening from a corner of the gallery and smiles a Mona Lisa smile.

She throws them at us, the clichés, and leaves us to reflect which social concepts we consider worthy to embrace or – literally – to kick (off). Seah’s show is witty, clever, colourful, and as amused by the artist’s own patience as aware of her anger, which is celebrated as expression of joy, life, and the ability and necessity to evolve.

 


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