Saffron Surrender
Wei-Ling Gallery is pleased to announce ‘Saffron Surrender’ by renowned London-based Malaysian artist Rajinder Singh. The exhibition will showcase a new series of large paintings and sculptures. The artist will also be presenting his volume of poetry titled ‘Pale in Saffron’.
In ‘Saffron Surrender’, Rajinder returns to wrestle with the inheritances of coloniality through three stories from his childhood growing up in Ipoh, Malaysia, passed on through generations and shared by the Sikh diaspora in Malaysia and around the world. These stories of objectification and humiliation by the British colonial forces of the Sikh body form the powerful underlying narrative behind his poetry, paintings, and sculptures. He contemplates what decolonisation could mean in the Malaysian-Sikh context as a basis for transitioning from acknowledged embodied colonial inheritances to being otherwise.
According to the artist, a historical surrender within a modern body recalls a shared memory of both extreme loss and submission as well as resiliency and resistance. It acts as a reminder of the fortitude needed to uphold one’s identity and dignity in the face of injustice. Not only is a surrender remembered for the act of giving in, but also for the subsequent fight to regain control, honour, and self-worth. It is evidence of the perseverance of the human spirit and the ongoing quest for cultural preservation and self-determination.
‘Saffron Surrender‘ is featured at Wei-Ling Gallery from 17 August – 14 September 2024.
Wei-Ling Gallery is located at No 8, Jalan Scott, Brickfields, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Admission hours are Tuesday – Friday 10am – 6pm, Saturday 10am – 5pm.
Exhibition is open by appointment only. For appointments and further assistance, please contact +60322601106 or e-mail siewboon@weiling-gallery.com
The exhibition is supported by
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rajinder Singh (b. Ipoh, Malaysia) is an artist and researcher working from his studios in Dublin and London. Rajinder’s paintings, installations, photography, video, and performance work explore ideas around the vulnerable body and its pain, interrogating the economies of power that deny it space and shape. Often focused on the power of ritual action in the construction of the social body, his practice explores the ways the human body unfolds around various topographic and symbolic borders.
Rajinder Singh’s last solo exhibition in Wei-Ling Gallery, ‘Saffron Songs’, took place in 2022. It featured a series of vibrant and dynamic paintings that the artist referred to as ‘large scores’, based on a set of sounds that held particular meaning to him, connecting him to his community, culture, and history. ‘Cage of Deliverance‘, held in 2016, was a body of work deeply rooted in the artist’s intrigue with the gestures, movements, and rhythms of ritual practices in South Asia and the scarred, fragmented bodies as well as the healing, embracing unities they produce. Much like his first solo exhibition with the Gallery, “…the ceiling floats away with a sigh..” in 2014, Rajinder based his works on the notion of spaces that distend from apertures and portals. Spaces such as the shrine, the temple, and the prayer mat are all located in the real world but are, in some inexplicable manner, connected to another distant and unmapped sphere.
Rajinder graduated with a PhD in Engineering (UK) in 1993 and a Master’s in Fine Arts (Singapore) in 2010. In 2023, he was invited to show a series of sculptures at the Royal Academy in Dublin as part of his solo presentation ‘Pale in Saffron’. In the same year he worked with dancers across the globe as an invited choreographer at the Irish Museum of Modern ( IMMA) as well as The Festival of Irish Choreographers. He was also recently shortlisted for both the Golden Fleece Award and EVA International Biennale 2022. He was part of the Tulca Festival of Arts in 2020 as well as Tulca 2019 and is the recipient of several awards for his sculptures and movement-based work. His sculptures were shown as part of the year-long exhibition ‘Narrow Gate’ at IMMA in 2021/22 and recently in ‘Bodywork’ at Crawford Art Gallery. Rajinder is a recipient of substantial bursaries for his body-based, movement-oriented work from the Arts Council of Ireland. He has been commissioned for new work by various museums and art festivals in Ireland. Rajinder has taught as a guest artist/choreographer at the Irish World Academy, Maynooth University, and University College Dublin. His work is part of the national arts collections in IMMA, The Glucksman Museum, and the Arts Council of Ireland. Rajinder is the founder of the contemporary art review magazine Drenched Reviews (www.soaked.space).