National Gallery Singapore is the home of an important exhibit on Chinese ink art. Recently opened, the collection represents some of the most essential beginnings of fine art in Singapore, dating back to the Nanyang Style of art popularized just before the beginning of Singapore as an independent nation. This style featured traditional artistic practices, including ink art, set in the familiar environment of Singapore. This meant that everyday lives and sights were included as themes in the paintings.
One of the works that will be on display offers a fine example of artists using traditional Chinese ink art techniques, but adapting them to suit the everyday life and experience of people living in Singapore. The scene details a trio of women resting outside of a structure, wearing traditional clothing. One of them is in the process of securing her hair, lifting the strands from her shoulders. The art is reflective of bringing the beauty out in the mundane, for the women have just finished bathing.
Another work of art offers a view of the traditional life on a kampung, or Singaporean village. This vibrant scene, rendered in bright colors, shows the cacophony of activity in a village by the sea. Workers carry baskets of goods suspended on poles between them, while others tend to a variety of boats beached on the shore, including men who are raising or lowering a sail. The ocean is emerald green beyond them, though gray clouds might signal a coming squall, highlighted by the spread fronds of a grouping of palm trees in the corner of the canvas.
Still another ink art masterpiece depicts perhaps the most ordinary of scenes with great beauty, detail, and emotion — a pair of cats doing what cats do best: being lazy. A black and white spotted cat yawns broadly on the left, showing its fangs and spreading its clawed toes, while its calico companion checks over its shoulder at a distraction just off the canvas, perhaps interrupted in an awkward pose of grooming itself. While most Chinese ink art pieces offer sweeping looks at mountains, forests, and temples, this irreverent work is masterful in its own way, perfectly capturing the actions of the cats.
Get back to your own artistic roots by enrolling in a class on Chinese ink art today. SGArtClass.com will help connect you with a professional art teacher who will teach you everything you need to know about completing your very own works of art in Chinese ink painting. Even if you don’t have any artistic experience, you will quickly learn the techniques and skills necessary to complete such works, including what mediums to use, how to hold and move the brush, and other details. Other classes are available if you already have experience in ink art, or simply wish to investigate additional creative genres.
To learn more about the Chinese ink art exhibit at National Gallery Singapore, including previewing some of the pieces on hand, go to http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/lifestyle/relive-singapore-s-yesteryear-through-iconic-chinese-ink-art/3569644.html.