With Singapore’s National Day celebrations following the London 2012 Summer Olympics, it is easy to get swept up in a sense of national pride. These public spectacles aside, how does the
visual arts better help us understand our national identity? How have artists depicted our local histories, and tied it to their own personal life-stories? How can we rediscover our country with new eyes through art?
Singapore’s art scene has been said to be characterized by a pastiche of styles, taking its cues from Western (historical or contemporary) art movements and Eastern artistic traditions. Nevertheless, our local artists have still tried to examine questions of what
defines us as Singaporeans, either as a national collective, or as individuals.
In Singapore’s earlier decades, pioneer artists like Chua Mia Tee and Liu Kang captured life in Singapore through their depictions of local scenes and landscapes. While Liu Kang adopted a more lyrical (more…)
