One of Wei-Ling Gallery’s much awaited shows on its calendar of events is finally here – a solo exhibition by the inimitable Ivan Lam. After two years of his Panorama series, which saw his paintings going up on a billboard at the busy Jalan Johar in Damansara Heights two years ago, this third series will feature only five new paintings.

This series, entitled Together Alone, will see a combination of images and themes that have taken precedence in his previous works with symbolism, optical theories and colourfields. The monumentality of this series lies in the size of the canvases, as Ivan Lam aims to stretch his works into another realm with the use of scale and the development of his technique. These masterpieces shows Lam at the heights of his artistic practice and demonstrates his skills of the use of synthetic house paints in his work, a skill he has perfected in the last five years. This exhibition is considered as a milestone as it takes contemporary Malaysian art into a new dimension, with unprecedented scale and quality.

Ivan Lam graduated with a Bachelor Arts in Fine Art Painting from the Maine College of Art in United States in 1998 and returned to Malaysia to begin his career as a fine artist. Initially known as a printmaker, he used the silkscreen as a means to create works that dealt with colour fields and reflected international issues. Having mastered the silkscreen seven years later, Ivan Lam was regarded as the country’s most relevant contemporary printmaker. It was at this time that Lam made a brave move of shifting his focus from printing to painting. His first series, After all these years… saw Lam creating a suite of only 12 paintings over a course of three years. These highly acclaimed paintings were the foundation of what was to come and allowed Lam to display his fearless approach in tackling unfamiliar grounds.

Panorama was created between 2007-2009 and was a series of only nine paintings. Through his paintings, it was apparent that Lam was more confident with his new medium and gave in fully to the painting process. The works which dealt with everyday scenes allowed the viewer to be the protagonist of the panorama that was unfolding before their eyes.

The Together Alone exhibition will be featured at Wei-Ling Gallery from 8th till 28th March 2011and from 1st till 29th April 2011 at Wei-Ling Contemporary. Wei-Ling Gallery is located at 8, Jalan Scott, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur and Wei-Ling Contemporary is located at G212 & 213A Ground Floor, The Gardens Mall, Kuala Lumpur.