Fates and Furies: Appetite, Singapore

 

Symbol and allegory have long been used by artists and writers to shape story and give vivid form to abstract concepts, unspeakable emotions and impulses. Fates and Furies brings together works by artists that draw on myth, archetypes and art history to express often conflicted or ambivalent narratives, ranging from evocative personal vignettes to political and social allegory. Other works offer us a sliver of a larger, magical universe which our lives are inextricably bound up with, glimpsed through symbol and story.

 

 

Colour, shape and scale are central to Sinta Tantra’s abstract works. Tantra’s interest in exploring the relationship and interaction between these formal elements lies in their evocative quality and open-endedness, and what they might signify and symbolize. As she shares, “I’m interested in colours in terms of the stories they tell, but also in what they say about us”.

 

Created from the painstaking application of gold leaf, the luminous works on show evoke the resplendent, life-giving energy of the sun, a long tradition of gilding spiritual icons to symbolize their divinity, as well as wealth, vanity, and the extractive practices of colonialism. Across these expansive fields of gold, circles suggest the movement of celestial bodies, cycles of time, or the symbolism of meditative practices, while the abstracted, dancing forms hark back to forgotten myths and rituals, or the gentle swaying of tropical foliage near Tantra’s family home in Bali.

 

Myths and folktales are rife with stories about metamorphosis, often bestowed as divine reward or retribution, or an avenue for protagonists to assert their agency. These miraculous transformations colour our everyday reality with magic and wonder, suggesting the enmeshing of human life with the natural and supernatural worlds, as well as a desire to transcend our earthly bodies and boundaries.

 

Yosefa Aulia’s delicate drawings portray an assortment of limbs and bodies intertwined with botanicals, birds and brass objects, the latter imagery stemming from her Catholic upbringing. Aulia describes these dream-like passages as an expression of her struggle to separate herself and her body from that of her ‘family body’. These images may also be read as the artist’s desire to imagine other possibilities and forms for her self, with various objects and organic forms functioning as extensions, supports, or coverings for bodily fragments. In other works, the flowering of limbs suggests impulses that cannot be contained, expressing a life-force bursting out of the bounds of propriety and control.

 

Nyx and Hemera are part of Melissa Tan’s ongoing series of paper relief works shaped after minor asteroids, many of which have been named after mythologicl figures. Nyx is named after the primordial goddess of the night in Greek mythology. She is mother to Hemera (Day), the three Fates, as well as Hypnos (Sleep), Thanatos (Death), Nemesis (Retribution) and Eris (Strife). In ancient art, Nyx is often shown paired with Hemera, a mirror image to symbolise Night and Day. Here they are portrayed as a pair of wings, and can be seen as individuals in their own right, or as two halves of a whole: Nyx with eyes closed, and Hemera awakening from sleep.

 

From time to time, asteroids may be deemed lost when they veer off their predicted paths within the solar system. The new discovery of a celestial body could well be the rediscovery of a previously lost asteroid. Just like the characters that these asteroids are named after, stories and narratives trace their own orbits: sometimes forgotten, sometimes re-emerging in a new light, reclaiming themselves from familiar myths and revealing more with each return.

 

Inspired equally by Western and Asian art – from Indian miniatures to classical Greek statuary – painter Richie Nath creates richly detailed tableaus that make reference to art history and mythology to offer commentary on our times. Exploring the motif of beheading in myths and folktales from around the world, from the Burmese legend of Lady Golden Face to that of Medusa in Greek mythology, Nath re-tells the stories of monsters, heroes and heroines to reflect on notions of power and oppression, sacrifice and agency.

 

For a full dossier of available works, please contact siuli@appetitesg.com

Tan Siuli

 

All artists

Haridas Contemporary

ISA Art Gallery

 

Exhibition Dates: June 11 – September 8, 2024 

Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday,  6pm – Late

 

Venue: Appetite, 72A Amoy St, Singapore 069891