Chinese and Singapore artists reveal 'Pulse of a City'

Chinese and Singaporean artists are presenting a show featuring sustainability in Shanghai Dayuntang Art Museum through Sept 25. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Four artists from Singapore and four from China came together for the project upon invitation of Singapore International Foundation. They made visits to each other's home city, discussing the problems of city life, which culminated in the joint exhibition titled Pulse of a City.

The show’s curator, Fu Jun, who's also deputy director of Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute Art Museum, said that she wanted the exhibition to be a cultural initiative calling for sustainability and diversity, bringing a feel of warmth for urban dwellers.

One of the four artists from Singapore, Didier Ng went to the Shanghai Fei Ye Art Special Education for Children and Shanghai Xingyu Intellectual Training Center, as well as Ang Mo Kio district in Singapore, where she taught the residents and children with special needs to weave recycled fabric for her installation piece named Ripple.

Ng said the forms made from used plastic bottles and old clothes are based on stalactites and stalagmites in natural caves.

The art piece is also meant to remind people that more consumption leads to more waste, she said.

Allan Lim, the curator of the Singaporean part, said that the collection of installations by Singaporean artists as a whole, "examines the different issues of urban living, with a special focus on engaging the community by involving them in the actual creation of the artworks, or through inviting them to participate in the artwork to spread awareness about key issues faced by our cities".

In contrast to the community involvement of Singaporeans, the four Chinese artists have shown remarkable techniques and mature expressions. Mao Donghua, an ink artist, presented a series of water-ink paintings of antique buildings on the Bund.

She used a unique painting skill in traditional Chinese ink art, named "Mo Gu", where the architecture structures are depicted through ink stains, without any solid outline. The light and shade is also realized through different intensity of the ink.

"I hope to present the classical, Western-style granite buildings using the gentle and soft ink paintings techniques, so as to find heartfelt warmth hidden behind the cold architecture," she said.

IF YOU GO

Pulse of a City

10 am-4:30 pm, through Sept 25.

Dayuntang Art Museum, 1F, Building 5, the Old Wharf, 725 Wai Malu, Huangpu district, Shanghai. 021-6312-9003.

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