Departure 3
A Group Exhibition by Milenko Prvacki and Singaporean artists Faris Nakamura, Jodi Tan, Leow Wei Li , Tan Wee Lit, and ZERO (Zul Othman)
Preview: 22 March 2018, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Exhibition opens to public: 23 March – 7 April 2018
iPreciation is proud to present Departure 3, the third edition of a biennial showcase featuring the latest pieces of Milenko Prvacki, while capturing a selection of works by the following artists who graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore: Tan Wee Lit, Leow Wei Li, Jodi Tan, Faris Nakamura, and ZERO (Zul Othman).
Departure 3 is curated by Milenko Prvacki, one of Singapore’s foremost contemporary artists, art educator, and Cultural Medallion recipient. Prvacki has been a mentor to and influence on many generations of young artists at Lasalle College of the Arts throughout various stages of their artistic careers. This exhibition affirms Prvacki’s visionary impact on Singapore’s Art Scene, as he extends beyond academia and art practice to nurture young contemporary artists.
The exhibition explores the personal experiences and expressions of these artists, while reflecting on their developments in professional art making, as they draw references from various sources of inspiration, such as space, sound, and urban life. Encompassing a diverse range of two and three-dimensional mediums, this year’s lineup would include paintings, assemblages, and mixed media installations, presenting a comprehensive and eclectic mix of artworks that were specially produced for Departure 3.
Artist Biographies:
Milenko Prvački (b. 1951, Yugoslavia / Singapore) is one of Singapore’s foremost abstract painters. Born in Yugoslavia, Prvački moved to Singapore in 1991. He started his career as an art practitioner and art educator in Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore, in 1994. He graduated with a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts (Painting) from the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Romania, in 1998. Subsequently, he was appointed the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the institution until the year 2010, after which he assumed the post of Senior Fellow in 2011. In 2012, he was conferred the prestigious Cultural Medallion for Visual Arts by the National Arts Council, Singapore and the Silver Medallion for Knights in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Embassy. Formally trained in Eastern European painting, Prvacki was enthralled by Chinese ink painting (水墨, shui mo) when he first moved to Singapore. His oil and acrylic paintings display visible Chinese ink influences, evident in the light washes and layers of colours and brush strokes together with the distinctive method of featuring various narratives around the canvas as opposed to the idea of a singular focal narrative in Western art. While his paintings are informed by personal experiences, they also engage with issues pertinent in society. Prvacki further questions the representative nature of painting by examining the relationship between abstraction and figuration. The figurative elements employed in his paintings are, at the same time, amorphous and highly ambiguous, thereby defying identification and categorization. Prvacki has held solo exhibitions within Singapore, Sydney, Jakarta, Yugoslavia and has also participated in several group exhibitions in the USA, Hong Kong, U.K, Belgium, Korea and many other countries. His works are in several public and permanent collections including that of the Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Singapore Art Museum (Singapore), National Art Gallery (Singapore), NUS Museum (Singapore), Museum of Contemporary Drawing (Nurnberg, Germany), National Museum of Belgrade (Yugoslavia) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade, Yugoslavia).
Tan Wee Lit (b. 1978, Singapore) graduated with an MFA in Sculpture and has exhibited extensively locally and internationally as a practicing artist. He is a recipient of numerous study awards and scholarships from the National Arts Council Singapore and the Media Authority Singapore for his undergraduate and graduate studies. Tan has also worked on multiple commissions for private collections and public art works at Raffles Place (2013), Haw Par Villa (2012), the Jubilee Walk (2015) and the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam (2017). He had his first solo exhibition for “12×12 New Artists/ New Work” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and was also awarded the Graduate Fellowship upon graduation. He won the Grand Prize for the 3rd Singapore Sculpture Award in 2007 and has had exhibitions in Europe, the United States and Asia- amongst them “Identities vs Globalisation” (Berlin), “The Same Rain, The Same Wind” (Chiangmai National University), “We Who Saw Signs” (ICA Singapore), “Fifth Outdoor Sculpture Biennial” (Baltimore). He has taught at Singapore Management University, Lasalle College of the Arts, Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore University of Social Sciences and School of the Arts Singapore. Wee Lit was conferred the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council in 2012.
Leow Wei Li (b. 1994, Singapore) graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts with Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours). She works with paint and collect noises. Her paintings are observations of sounds and architecture where she seeks to examine the shapes, colours and textures of ordinary everyday experiences and nuisances. Wei Li is part of an artist duo, Sobandwine, where she does mural paintings and works with various other mediums such as graphic design, sound and videos. Wei Li is a recipient of Young Talent Programme Winners’ Solo Exhibition 2016/17 and has recently exhibited her works at ION Art Gallery, the Affordable Art Fair Singapore and was also one of VADA’s Untapped Discovery artists in 2017. She is also a recipient of TCC-LaSalle Artist-Curator Alumni Award and the Samsung Future Masters 1st runner-up Award in 2016. She has also been awarded the LASALLE College of the Arts and Ngee Ann Kongsi Scholarships during her study. Wei Li has recently participated in Namwon Sound Artists Residency Programme 2017 and will be one of the upcoming resident artists for Seoul Art Space Geumcheon in 2018.
Jodi Tan (b.1990, Singapore) is a Singapore-based artist. Her core interest lies in image-making and image-reading. Tan graduated with a BA (Honours) in Fine Arts in 2011, from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. She was awarded The Winston Oh Travel Research Award in the same year and has also participated in several exhibitions locally, including the inaugural UNTAPPED EMERGING (2016) organised by Visual Arts Development Association Singapore. Tan is a founding member of The Collective, a group of individuals that have gathered to execute artist-initiated projects.
Faris Nakamura (b. 1988, Singapore) graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from LASALLE College of the Arts in partnership with Goldsmiths, College of London. His works reflect his interest in architecture and nature, while at the same time, deal with conceptual questions of space and the relationship people have with space. Through sculptures, installations and site-specific works, he investigates and explores the different ways people navigate and orientate themselves upon encountering a space or place. Additionally, he desires to study and understand the attachment and/or detachment they have towards certain spaces or places, how it develops, and the impact it has on them. Faris was most recently awarded the Young Talent Programme 2017/18 Winners’ Solo Exhibition. In 2015, he won the Kobe Biennale Grand Prize in the Shitsurai International Art Competition held by Kobe Biennale and in 2013, he was the recipient of the Winston Oh Travel Award. Faris has exhibited both locally and internationally. He has showcased at venues such as The Substation (Singapore), National Library (Singapore), Scotts Square (Singapore), Praxis Space (Singapore), Kobe Biennale, Meriken Park (Japan), Georgetown Festival (Penang, Malaysia) FASS Art Gallery (Turkey), Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi, (Venice).
Zul Othman (b.1979, Singapore), commonly known by his artist moniker Zero has been a practising artist since late 2003. His is an unconventional practice, opting to delve into the subculture norms of street art and graffiti. His notions of a street artist being a pseudo documentarist of contemporary urban life is reflected in his growth as an artist throughout the years. His artistic research and works revolve around contemporary issues on urban social life and space, current affairs and adverse effects of pop culture. A reactionary artist, ZERO’s body of works attempts to negotiate the oddity of street and graffiti art in a regulated space while creating social commentaries on the notion of society and space. His exploits with his defunct collective ARTVTS, has been acknowledged as influencers of the street art scene in South East Asia. He has since founded the RSCLS collective and is still currently active in archiving and documenting urban art practices in South East Asia. His critical approach into understanding and researching urban art practices is apparent in his contemporary practice as an artist. From 2008 till 2010, ZERO was an associate artist with The Substation. In 2013, he was awarded the Young Artists Award by the National Arts Council and also the National Arts Council Seed Grant Award with RSCLS. His works have been acquired by the Singapore Arts Museum in 2010 as part of their permanent collection and he has participated in, organised and curated multiple exhibitions and events both in Singapore and internationally over the course of his artistic practice. He holds a Master of Arts (Fine Arts) Degree from LASALLE College of the Arts/ Goldsmiths UK.
