Mandala Gallery in Singapore might be closed, but its list of troubles are only just beginning. Nearly forty artists say that they have not been able to retrieve their artwork that was on display at the gallery, and employees of the gallery say they are still owed pay.
The owner of the gallery, who is from Sri Lanka, left Singapore in 2016 after the gallery closed. The space where Mandala used to stand remains empty to this day, the walls blank and plain, the doors chained shut. The main issue is the artworks, whose combined value total more than $1 million. The masterpieces from nearly forty international artists were transferred to a secure storage facility following the closing of Mandala Gallery, but there’s a catch — the storage facility refuses to release any paintings to their rightful artists because of rent owed by the gallery owner for the storage space.
The artists who displayed their work at Mandala Gallery are not only unable to retrieve their paintings. They also are owed thousands of dollars in framing and transport costs for those works.
One such artist whose artworks are in limbo, a painter from Ukraine, made public the issues that were going on in an attempt to force some kind of action. The painter is missing several paintings that Mandala Gallery used in a show tailored to scuba diving. The painter himself works while underwater, completing uniquely rendered abstract pieces while scuba diving. Even reaching out to the Ukrainian embassy in Singapore has left the artist with no options.
The former gallery owner, when contacted by a newspaper, agreed that he needed to make payments for the storage facility rent, but admitted it was hard since he had lost half a million dollars after opening Mandala Gallery. This debt accrued, coupled with the defunct storage facility rent, has also meant that employees still have back pay owed to them. One employee says he is owed $11,000, and that even when the gallery was open, the owner would never pay him on time. This isn’t the first time the gallery has been embroiled in scandal. In 2016, it was accused of illegally reproducing a painting as a print and attempting to sell it for thousands of dollars.
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To read more about the plight of the artists whose work remains with the closed Mandala Gallery, go to http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/shuttered-gallery-leaves-artists-hanging.