Bangkok--16 Oct--Total Quality PR
Richard Koh Fine Art (RKFA) is pleased to announce Nadiah Bamadhaj's (b.1968) solo exhibition in Singapore. Lush Fixations is scheduled to run from 25 Oct – 9 Nov 2019. The artist will present six paper collage works and three cast patina-ed brass sculptures in her first attempt with the medium.
In Lush Fixations, the body of works attempts to create two situations; a celebration and an accusation. The first, is to negate codes. The drawings are an attempt to celebrate body, sex and sexuality, and are regarded as a challenge and confrontation to power that prefers to keep sex and sexuality behind the closed doors of conservatism.
The drawings of the body are coupled with selected plant species to emphasize the overtness of sexuality. The notion of 'lush' in the context of the drawings are regarded as sexual, not fertile. The titles play with the Latin names of plants to produce meanings of their own.
The second segment, in sculptural form, point fingers at the finger pointers. Sexuality has been the whipping boy of religious fundamentalism and doctrine to dominate relationships, appearance, and agency. This body of works is an reaction towards the effort to stifle and codify all expressions of sexuality, and in an ironic twist, reveals the conservatist fixation on the very thing that they are trying to suppress. Both drawings and sculptures, come together to formulate the exhibition title; Lush Fixations.
Nadiah Bamadhaj (b. 1968, Malaysia) was initially trained as a sculptor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand but now produces drawings, sculptures, installations and digital images. She has worked in non- governmental organizations, lectured in art, and has written on both Malaysia and Indonesia. In 2000, she began her full-time art practice and was awarded the Nippon Foundation's Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship in 2002, electing to spend her fellowship period in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where she currently lives with her husband and son. Her artwork continues to focus on the social intricacies of Yogyakarta's society, using myth, architecture, and dwelling to articulate her observations.
Founded in 2005, with spaces in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Singapore, Richard Koh Fine Art is committed to the promotion of Southeast Asian contemporary art on regional and international platforms. Centred around a core belief in developing an artist's career, the gallery looks to identify understated, albeit promising practices, and providing it opportunities to flourish. Through its regular exhibition cycles, print & digital publications and cross-border gallery collaborations, Richard Koh Fine Art engages the art community with the aim of developing regional and intercultural dialogue.
For further information about the exhibition, please do not hesitate to contact Christiaan Haridas at +65 9788 4291, email:
[email protected]