Figure drawing, anatomy and life study have long been central to artistic practice, particularly within academic training. Amidst their growing interest in depicting scenes of everyday life, the Impressionists enlisted professional models and those within their inner social circles to pose for their works. While models were indispensable to the emergence of modern imagery, they were often treated as functional necessities, with their labour and presence frequently circumscribed by the power relations embedded in the act of depiction.
What does it mean to look, to be looked at, and to be represented? This evening discussion brings together artists Yanyun Chen, Kim Hian, Sonia Kwek, and Curatorial Assistant Alexis Chen to examine the shifting dynamics between artists and their models. Through close readings of paintings by Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Victorine Meurent, the programme invites a closer consideration of how modern paintings were produced, and how power and agency were negotiated within the process of making.
-
When: 5 Feb 2026, 7.30–8.30pm - Suitable For: Adults, Visitors with accessibility needs, Students and Educators
- Where: City Hall Wing, Level 3, Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery 1 (near Lift Lobby A)
- Ticket information: $8 per pax
About the speakers
Alexis Chen is Curatorial Assistant at National Gallery Singapore, where she supported the exhibitions Figuring a Scene (2024–2025), Fernando Zóbel: Order is Essential (2025) and the travelling exhibition Georgette Chen: At Home in the World held at Shenzhen’s He Xiangning Art Museum (2025). She worked as one of the curators for Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2025–2026). Formerly, she was a cataloguer at Christie’s Singapore. In 2025, her exhibition review of the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art was published on Contemporary Art Issue. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Yale-NUS College.
Dr Yanyun Chen is a visual artist and educator. Her practice untangles aesthetic, cultural and technological anatomies, unravelling notions of embodiment and inheritances. She wrestles with the questions: what intergenerational weight has been carried in our bodies; how have our families marked us; which bones scaffold our knowledge of the world? Chen has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of prestigious awards including the Singapore National Arts Council Young Artist Award (2020), ArtOutreach IMPART Visual Artist Award (2019) and Singapore Art Museum President’s Young Talents People’s Choice Award (2018). Chen holds a PhD from the European Graduate School, an MA in communications and a BFA in animation.
Kim Hian entered art modelling in 2000 after working as a Paintbox Designer in media production. Since then, he has collaborated with numerous local and overseas artists, photographers, and media professionals, at a time when male models were scarce. While studying in Australia, modelling supported his tuition. After returning to Singapore, he balanced corporate training with modeling before committing full-time. Today, he mentors emerging models and continues to be sought after for his professionalism, skill, and collaborative experience.
Sonia Kwek works with performance, movement and body. She performs, facilitates, directs, choreographs, dramaturges, writes and produces across varying spaces, including stage performances, site-specific responses, mocap-animated digital experiences, and others. Informed by theatrical worldbuilding and Butoh techniques, her work explores corporeal sensualities, myths/archetypes and the latent unseen to deal with questions about embodiment, gender, and perception. Often involving collaboration and transdisciplinary experimentation, Sonia seeks to centre the expression and experience of the intimate, visceral and erotic. In 2024, her short film hard boil, soft centre was selected for Asian Film Archive’s SG Shorts, Ngilngig Asian Fantastic Film Festival and CreateART’s Dance Film Night. She started to trace life drawing, organising workshops and sessions featuring performance.
Explore More
Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise
Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise highlights the lives and practices of five artists from Southeast Asia for whom art, life, kinship and community are inseparable. Featuring Imelda Cajipe-Endaya (Philippines), Nirmala Dutt (Malaysia), Amanda Heng (Singapore), Dolorosa Sinaga (Indonesia), and Phaptawan Suwannakudt (Thailand), the exhibition honours their multi-faceted roles—not only as artists, but also as educators, writers or community organisers.
Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Explore the revolutionary world of Impressionism through iconic works by Renoir, Monet, Manet, Cézanne, and Degas, never before exhibited in Singapore.
Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours in Art
The newly revamped DBS Singapore Gallery exhibition presents a layered, ever-changing story of Singapore’s art history. Explore the unique pathways and detours of artists, and see their iconic artworks from the 19th century to present.