Art SG (2025)
Green Shroud, 2023, Oil on canvas, 150 x 200cm
Art SG (2025), FOST Gallery, Singapore
This painting portrays a temporary work site near my home in Singapore. A bright green tarp dominates the canvas, while a neon orange safety net stretches across the foreground, wrapping around a familiar multilingual danger sign. Lush trees frame the composition, and above, the sky is a clear blue, dotted with fluffy clouds.
For me, this seemingly ordinary sight holds an unexpected grandeur. The tarp and net transform the scene into a visual study of shapes and colours, with the folds and drapes of the tarpaulin taking on a sculptural quality, reminiscent of the robes of gods or royalty in classical paintings. Yet, this is not a painting of divine beings; it is the transient landscape of a work site; a prosaic, yet ever-changing reality.
Tarp represents Singapore’s constant state of flux, and reminds me of the opacity surrounding the country’s development. As citizens, we are often unaware of what lies beneath the surface of rapid change – plans and policies that remain obscure to most people.
Everyday we walk past hoardings and construction sites for new flats, new train lines, new malls, while plugged into our devices, the sounds of construction drowned out by noise-cancelling earphones, our eyes fixed on screens.
There is a numbness to it, a passive trust that these massive transformations behind the brightly coloured tarps are leading to an “even more perfect future”. The cityscape is in perpetual motion, and we have become desensitized to the endless changes, accepting them without question.
To the left of the tarp, a small hole subtly invites the viewer to look through. What lies concealed? I'm not sure. But it seems to beckon us, urging us to peer behind the shroud.