Boo Sze Yang, Milenko Prvački & Wong Keen |

The Spatial, The Ephemeral, And The Possibility Of It All 

artcommune gallery

01.07.2023 – 16.07.2023

artcommune gallery is honoured to present The Spatial, The Ephemeral, And The Possibility Of It All. This major 3-man group exhibition, will showcase over 30 new works by Singapore’s leading and most senior contemporary painters namely Boo Sze Yang, Milenko Prvački and Wong Keen. The exhibition encompasses a juxtaposition of three individual and distinct presentations: ‘Romance On Hobby Horses’ by Boo Sze Yang, ‘Abstraction For Beginners’ by Milenko Prvački, and ‘Everything Is But Colour’ by Wong Keen, more details on each presentation can be found in Annex A. Each artistic presentation will showcase his latest series of paintings, encouraging the audience to delve deeper into the artist’s psyche and preoccupations that shape his techniques, themes and expressions. Visitors can expect to view a range of paintings from abstract to figurative works, with the smallest painting measuring from 40 x 120 cm to the largest paintings at 200 x 600 cm or 300 x 400 cm.

While the artists are known to one another, this marks the first time their works are exhibited together in conversation. Despite their different backgrounds, formal training and visual styles, Boo Sze Yang, Milenko Prvački and Wong Keen have each dedicated their respective practices to the medium of painting, burrowing ever deeper in their explorations and expansions of materials and forms. The Spatial, The Ephemeral, And The Possibility Of It All aims to illuminate how the three artists conceive and locate their painting practices in relation to the development of painting as a formal medium and language, and how they renew the significance of painting in these contemporary times.

The curator of the exhibition Ma Pei Yi opines, “Many great painters, from Vincent van Gogh to Jackson Pollock, have asserted the well-worn expression that the painting has a life of its own. This exhibition brings to focus the fiery passion and unique intricacies that characterise each artist’s dynamic engagement with the medium of painting. Artists create paintings to contemplate and communicate certain issues, ideas and emotions (aesthetic, cultural, political, moral, etc.). The process of painting is very much a means of probing into the unknowable and the uncomfortable, the tussle between good and evil, events of loss and turbulence, the resilience and frailty of life, and all the inherent contradictions of mankind.”

The show officially opens on Saturday, 1 July 2023, from 2pm to 4.30pm with the artists in attendance. More details on the opening day, artist talk, opening hours and guided tours can be found below.

About the Artists

Boo Sze Yang (b. 1965, Singapore) graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1991 and completed his Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art at the University of Reading, UK in 1995. He also obtained a Master in Arts Degree from Chelsea College of Art & Design, the University of the Arts, London in 2004. 

Boo has held 18 solo exhibitions. He exhibited in group exhibitions, notably in Da Xin Art Museum, Tainan, Taiwan (2018); Nakata Museum Onomichi, Hiroshima, Japan (2018); Art Stage Singapore (2015 & 2016), Beers Contemporary, London (2014); Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum, Suzhou, China (2013); The 2012-13 Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Hong Kong (2013); the 26th Asian International Art Exhibition (AIAE), Hangaram Art Museum, South Korea (2011); Yingu Art Mansion, Beijing, China (2010); Stretch Your Imagination, Penang State Art Gallery, Malaysia (2009); University of Huddersfield and Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK (2009); Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (2001) and Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan (1999).

He is a recipient for the Ngee Ann Cultural Center Artist of the Year 2022, the Asian Artist Fellowship Award 2010/2011 sponsored by Freeman Foundation for residency at the Vermont Studio Center in USA, and the Distinguished Alumni Medal 2017 from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore. In 2003, he was awarded the Juror’s Choice for the Philip Morris Singapore-ASEAN Art Award and in 2009, the Platinum Award, UOB Painting of the Year Competition. He is featured in the publication 100 Painters of Tomorrow published by Thames & Hudson in 2014.  

His works are in the collections of the National Gallery Singapore, the Singapore Istana Art Collection, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore, Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment Singapore, Urban Redevelopment Authority Singapore, United Overseas Bank Singapore, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Singapore, Simmons & Simmons Contemporary Art Collection Singapore, Ngee Ann Kongsi Singapore and Yingu Art Mansion in Beijing.

Milenko Prvački (1951, Yugoslavia) graduated with a Master of Fine Arts (Painting) from the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Romania. He is one of Singapore’s foremost art educators, having commenced teaching at LASALLE College of the Arts since 1994, and in particular, he founded international artist residency, Tropical Lab in 2009, offering an environment for regional and international postgraduate students to carry out research and advance their art practice in Singapore. He was Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts for 17 years and currently holds the position of Senior Fellow. In 2002, Milenko became a Singapore citizen and was conferred the prestigious Cultural Medallion Award for Visual Arts in 2012. 

Since 1971, Milenko has exhibited extensively locally and abroad. His works are in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia; Museum of Contemporary Drawing, Nuremberg, Germany; Singapore Art Museum and National Gallery Singapore, among others.

The artist has also participated in numerous symposiums and art workshops worldwide. He continues to be engaged as visiting professor of fine arts at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan, Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, University of Washington’s School of Art, Washington D.C., United States, and RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. 

Prvački has garnered multiple numerous awards and honours over his decades-long art practice. In 1982, he was awarded the Museum of Contemporary Drawing Award and the Faber Castel Award conferred by the International Drawing Triennale in Nuremberg, Germany and in 1985, the Special Jury Award at the International Painting Exhibition, Cagnes sur Mer, France. In 2011, he was honoured with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government and, more recently, in 2020, the 22nd Sava Šumanović Fine Art Award by the Serbian government.

Wong Keen (b. 1942, Singapore) grew up in a Chinese literati environment and was an acclaimed young painter under the tutelage of pioneer artists Liu Kang and Chen Wen Hsi. In 1961, he travelled to America to study at the Art Students League of New York, becoming the first Singaporean and earliest of Chinese artists to venture into the post-war American art scene. 

In 1965, he became the first Singaporean and Asian of Chinese origin to be awarded the prestigious Edward G. McDowell Travelling Scholarship in the history of the Art Students League. With the scholarship, he completed a one-year postgraduate program at the then St. Martin’s School of Art in London.

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Having spent over fifty years in the US, Wong Keen registered a plethora of artistic influences that melded the fast-paced American art scene. His prolific oeuvre, which encompasses oil, ink, acrylic, collage, and mixed media works, is a powerful embodiment of the delicate expressivity of Chinese ink wash aesthetics and Western inventive approach towards form and colour.

Wong Keen’s work is held in a number of private and public collections, including the National Art Museum of China, Minnesota State University Art Museum, Albright Knox Art Gallery, New York, National Gallery Singapore, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore, Resorts World Sentosa and Fullerton Hotel.