ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Ivan Lam (B. 1975)

Ivan Lam has earned a reputation as one of Malaysia’s leading contemporary artists for his continuous ability to push the boundaries of his art practice. Unafraid to take risks and never content to lean on the familiar, he is constantly posing himself new challenges through experimentation with techniques and mediums, taking his art practice to the next level. In so doing he has evolved into an artist of critical acclaim who is answerable only to himself, consistently striving towards conceiving and actualizing new concepts and ideas.

Over the last 23 years he has charted new territory on the contemporary Malaysian art scene with his mastery of printmaking, his conquering of contemporary painting, through his trademark use of resin both imbuing his paintings with a technical ingenuity and transforms the narrative tone of the work – adding hyper-reality to the natural, distance to the familiar, pragmatism to pathos. Other dualities and dichotomies abound within his paintings and conceptual works, both harmoniously and in tension, underpinning his enquiries on popular culture, current affairs, art history and autobiography. His practice has recently taken on a more conceptual bias, raising questions around authorship, the role of the artist and the very nature of art itself.

He has exhibited widely in the local and international arena and has also garnered multiple awards in a career laden with solo and group exhibitions. Ivan Lam has been recognized for his achievements and has been collected by reputed institutions in Malaysia, Europe and the USA. He was the first and only Malaysian artist selected to present a one-man project at the inaugural Art Basel Hong Kong in 2013, and was the first Malaysian artist commissioned by Louis Vuitton for their collection in 2014.

In 2017, he presented a performance work entitled ‘Curating Human Experiences: Human Experience 66:06:06’ in Kuala Lumpur, and was the only artist from Malaysia invited to create a project for the Karachi Biennale in the same year. Ivan Lam was one of four Malaysian artists to represent Malaysia at the country’s first ever National Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2019. The work presented, One Inch (2019) explores dualities and dichotomies which sit both harmoniously and in tension in Lam’s work, beguiling the viewer to discover the multiple meanings within.

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RAJINDER SINGH (B. 1964)

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.

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