Artistic Explorations: A Visit to the National Gallery Singapore

This essay delves into the author's experience at the National Gallery of Singapore, focusing on Anthony Poon's 'The Jobless Son' and Roberto Chabet's 'The Collages.' The author reflects on Poon's abstract expressionism and the use of color to convey anxiety and despair, noting how the figure in the painting blends into the background, symbolizing obscurity. The essay also examines Chabet's collage work, interpreting it as a commentary on contemporary society and the equal value of diverse elements in the modern world. The author emphasizes the gallery's role in stimulating visual perception and eliciting emotional responses, concluding that each visit enhances their appreciation for art and its surrounding context. Desklib provides access to similar essays and study resources for students.

Running Head: ART AND OUR WORLDS
Art and Our Worlds
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

1ART AND OUR WORLDS
The National Gallery of Singapore holds some of the finest artworks in the world of
aesthetics. They are as experimental as they are traditional; a fine testimony to the culture of the
land, its people and the artists who capture them in canvas. A visit to the Gallery acquaints the
visitor to a plethora of dynamic artworks and new art movements that have been developing
since the inception of modern age. Amidst the superfluity of different pieces of artworks created
by prestigious artists the Gallery dons so splendidly, an abstract painting by avant-garde artist
Anthony Poon appeals to a sensitive visitor, displayed at an avoidable corner.
What attracts me most about The Jobless Son is the play of dark hues, using as less as
two colors for demarcating the figure from the background. The painting is executed by different
shapes of angles and lines, indicating the artist’s spirit of experimentation and influence of the
abstract movement of art. For an inexperienced visitor, it is difficult to figure out how Poon
made possible the creation of the perfect peacock blue with oil and paper. Although the anxiety
and despair that comes across the work is hard to miss, even for the amateur viewer. I took
particular note of how the figure is deliberately blurred into the background, it has special
significance to the title. The existence of the ‘jobless son’ is hushed into oblivion, he survives
like the painting does; somewhere in a drab corner, easily escaping notice. Poon’s expressionistic
tendency and his ensuing innovations in the trope of relief painting have inspired his creation of
the masterpiece. The painting explores how Poon developed his style methodically and found a
distinctive voice vent out his angst through artistic expression. Observing the painting on a
second visit reveals the work as semi-abstract, with its graduation of forest green and
effervescent hues of peacock blue, a remarkable play of colors for informing the mood. ). It is
easy to make out the figure of the decrepit man in shades of blue, while the rare and strategic use
of green solidifies the gloomy background. Poon deliberately does not use any distinct forms for

2ART AND OUR WORLDS
conveying his sense of uncertainty and aimlessness that characterizes the expressionist form art;
a technique and style to which he was a lifelong patron. In this painting, Poon have experimented
with movements and styles that broke away from abstract expressionism and opened his eyes to
a new world of aesthetic theories. He has earlier made paintings that varied from hard-edge
painting to geometric abstraction, making abrupt transitions between spaces of different colors,
spreading solid colors on a flat plane without any brushstrokes and most innovatively, Optical
Art. The Jobless Son ("National Gallery Singapore")in particular, has adherence to the
impressionist technique of art form, given the artists gives us idea of things, leaving us groping
for a meaning, or a connection in the multitude of possibilities. It speaks to me like darkness
speaks to the nocturnal bird, autumn speaks to the poet. I shall always make it a point to ruminate
on the painting each time I visit the Gallery, with the hope that it will reveal new dimensions to
me.
Collages have always fascinated me and there was no way the magnificent work titled
The Collages by Roberto Chabet, a renowned artist from Philippines, could have escaped my
notice. The work demonstrates the marvelous and the monstrous of the time more than Chabet’s
sustained endeavor of collaging. The numerous hand-torn and cut out paper pieces from books,
magazines, newspapers, comic books, stamped envelopes and art students’ plated bear witness to
the affluence of graphic materials and the photographical representation of history’s march that
the artist scraps with both violence and love (Myartguides.com). The artist chose to title the work
after the Chinese, Mongolian and Korean maps, which serve as the base for the former collages,
and the overleaf of the open map explains the rather strange and inverted L shape. A network of
coordinates for islands, mountains, paths and rivers serves as the stretch consequently suffocated
with paper layers for creating a topography beleaguered with the dense confetti of frenzied visual

3ART AND OUR WORLDS
information. The series was inspired from a real life experience. Chabet drew his inspiration
from a personal experience when after opening a map of China, he encountered severe
difficulties in his attempts to fold it back to its previous, original structure. He has featured
elements that are taken from immediate surroundings in his collage, thus adopting the role of a
window in his life at a specific point of time. Chabet himself describes the work as a ‘picture
morgue’; to me it was a collective transformation of the desire into the flailing of the valued and
treasured. While introspecting, I notices that some of the torn pages still bore the punctured
marks of thumbtacks; an evidence to the previous lives. These materials, now plastered and torn
in layers are framed meticulously, the paper strips ripped willfully are preserved, not discarded.
In the complexity of contemporary time, everything is equal in allegorical or formal value.
Hence the mash-up anticipating the poised visual detritus, suggesting that all entities—
Superman, Swastika and Buddha are strung in a fair game, the different shades of a tomato a
dash of cadmium paint, a trodden pouch of McDonalds for resembling fries, the burning bush of
Bible hold the same value in aesthetics. I was confused with the work during my first visit, but
the pattern and the ethos appealed to me after I gave it the required time and attention during my
second visit. It is one of those arts that does not limit itself to specific themes, techniques and
styles. Instead, it engages in spontaneous creativity for expression emotions through artistic
impulses (Artasiapacific.Com). The purpose of art is to elicit responses from the onlooker,
responses that is otherwise not triggered by regular activities of daily life. Each visit to the
Gallery leverages my passion for exploring visual arts and sensitizes my perception of art and the
world surrounding it.

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