Jane Lee’s latest commission Nowhere extends the scope of Raw Canvas, her monumental painting installed in the staircase of the City Hall Wing. Nowhere’s location at the Level 4 Foyer, a transitional space, invites visitors to pause and step onto a reflective platform to linger upon a bench that features the same painterly treatment as Raw Canvas. In the surrounding mirror-tiled wall, they can glance upon a shimmering but fragmented reflection of Raw Canvas and themselves.
Raw Canvas was first displayed at the 2008 Singapore Biennale, in this same location at the historic staircase of the City Hall Foyer. Ten years later, it has been returned. The work blurs the perceptual boundaries between fabric and paint. It comprises 40 square panels of densely-applied crisscrossing strands of silicone-incorporated acrylic and enamel paint, creating the appearance of a piece of textile draped over the wall. Nowhere amplifies this as a visual strategy to query and dissipate Raw Canvas’ solidity by splintering the work’s image.
Hence, the Nowhere that one experiences while sitting in between these two works created a decade apart is also the “now” and “here,” a philosophical play on words by the artist. Nowhere explores the illusory nature of what constitutes our reality, and serves as a spiritual reminder that the only real thing in our lives is the fleeting present.
- Where: City Hall Wing, Level 4, City Hall Foyer (in between Level 4 Gallery and Wu Guanzhong Gallery)