For his second solo exhibition with Chan Hampe Galleries, in Singapore, Esmond Loh presents “States of Being,” a collection of new paintings that mark a noticeable departure from his signature style.The artist’s previous works have focused on individuals captured in moments of strong emotion and set against neutral or blank backgrounds. In “Just Let Me Sleep” — created when Loh was just 17 and named UOB Painting of the Year in 2012 — the artist depicts himself, exhausted and pained, using frenetic brushstrokes for his face and body that contrast with the softly painted brown backdrop.The works in “States of Being,” however, show groups of people in identifiable locations, with the spaces as important as the emotion experienced within them. This change in focus was partly the result of watching a close relative fade away.“The Hospice,” 2016, one of the paintings in the exhibition, “was inspired by my grandmother being hospitalized frequently in the past few years due to illness,” Loh explained in a statement. “The scene of her suffering (sometimes even on the verge of death) in the hospital ward as family members gathered round became a recurring memory that evoked disquieting feelings.”The association of emotions with certain locations is an idea the artist returns to a number of times in the exhibition. “Incident,” 2016, for example, portrays a body hanging limply on a concrete block, a tower block looming in the background. These works also differ from Loh’s earlier ones in their embrace of ambiguity. We do not know what is happening in the image: Is the person falling or climbing, inches from the ground or meters in the air, dead or alive? All we know is that we are seeing an incident.The exhibition displays Loh’s own dual state of being: young enough to be adaptable and open to new painting styles while also wise beyond his years when it comes to capturing emotions in paint.“States of Being” runs April 16-30 at Chan Hampe Galleries, in Singapore.
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