ART SG 2026 – FOCUS Sector

(Level 1, Booth number FC12)

Wei-Ling Gallery presents Family Portrait, a new body of work by Malaysian artist Sean Lean in the Focus sector at Art SG 2026. This also marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in Singapore and his debut participation in the fair.

Family Portrait frames the domestic interior as a site where inherited histories are rehearsed, deferred, and reconfigured. Lean’s practice considers cultural inheritance and diasporic formation within a contemporary Malaysian context, informed by his experience as a second-generation Chinese Malaysian shaped by postcolonial nationhood, familial memory, and the imprint of Western popular culture.

At the centre of the presentation is a major installation structured around the architecture of the family table. A faceted dining table is surrounded by six chairs, each unique in form, scale, and finish. The arrangement corresponds to Lean’s immediate family, with each chair reflecting a distinct relation to inherited values and expectations. Portions of the table tilt and buckle, spilling into a field of shattered ceramics that stretches across the floor. Porcelain bowls and cutlery remain ceremonially placed, their order partly absorbed by the debris. The scene suggests a gathering either just concluded or about to begin, suspended between ritual protocol and rupture. In this liminal space, the domestic interior becomes a site of negotiation where roles, histories and affective turbulence occupy the same surface.

Above the table, a projection casts a looping image onto the sculpture. The footage comes from an altered recording of Nirvana’s ‘1993 MTV Unplugged’ concert, manipulated with a rippling effect that renders it unstable and distant. From a concealed speaker, Chinese folk songs from the artist’s parents’ generation play quietly. The interplay of sound and image establishes a subtle tension between memory and cultural reference, tracing the complex mechanisms through which generational identity is formed.

Accompanying the installation are new aluminium works that continue Lean’s material inquiry. Their surfaces emulate fine Chinese porcelain, recalling ornamental aesthetics and display while retaining the density and clarity of metal. This material translation emphasises how value, trauma, and unspoken histories circulate through objects and inherited forms. It reveals how codes of refinement shape generational identity through partial transmission and ongoing negotiation, where inherited structures persist even as their meanings shift over time and across lineage.

Visitor’s Information

Friday, 23 January | 12 to 7 pm
Saturday, 24 January | 11 am to 7 pm
Sunday, 25 January | 11 am to 6 pm

Ticket Purchase

Venue: Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sean Lean (B. 1981)

Sean Lean (b. 1981, Kuala Lumpur) is an artist whose practice spans painting, industrial materials, and automotive finishes. His work develops from Malaysian-Chinese histories, personal memory, and the cultural tensions shaped by tradition, aspiration, and the shifting values of a multicultural society. He often begins with fragments from his own life and moves toward broader questions of identity, belonging, and the narratives that shape the region.

He has exhibited in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, and China. In 2024 he took part in And the invader’s fear of memories, curated by Line Dalile, which placed his work alongside Lawrence Abu Hamdan, FX Harsono, and other artists engaged with memory, testimony, and the pressures of historical silence. Major bodies of work such as Flesh: Blacks and Whites (2013), Motherland (2015), 3 (2018), M2 (2020), china (2022), and COLORED (2024) trace his ongoing engagement with introspection and cultural inheritance. These exhibitions investigate the changing meanings of Chineseness and the negotiations within diasporic identity, while his material language has expanded into aluminium, mild steel, and automotive paints to consider industry, modernity, and the uncertain stability of cultural symbols.

Lean has also taken part in international collaborations, including a commission for KENZO with Tiger Beer and WWF inspired by conservation stories of wild tigers, and a special cover for Bazaar Art magazine. Across his projects he considers how personal history intersects with collective memory, revisiting traditions, belief systems, and inherited expectations through a contemporary lens that combines research, humour, and attentive craft.