THE GARDEN CITY; A study of landscape painting in contemporary Art is Ng’s third solo exhibition. It is his first solo at TAKSU. This aptly titled exhibition shows a series of paintings which extends his earlier investigations into cartography. In those paintings, he finds correlations between the marks and signs organized and indicated abstractly on the two dimensional maps being representative of places guided by a rule of scale against deliberate marks found on the surface of a painting. These paintings in simple terms ‘locate’ or ‘orientate’ the viewer by identifiable marks as would legends on a map are abstract forms as to be found in his paintings. The marks are gestural, formal weighed upon as valleys, hill-tops or patches of greenery in blues, greys and green. Without true north or compass north, the horizon appears and disappears when a painting is hung or more in exactitude, how it is hung. 

The Garden is a selection and comprising of 14 new paintings are Ng’s latest creations for TAKSU’s audience. In these paintings, the approaches and application of paint may seem or appear similarly: Canvas heavily encrusted and enveloped by densely laid oil paint organised either in the centre of the canvas or suggest a rapid rhizome movement or growth. Laid unassumingly, these marks and the paintings themselves are deliberate, yet reveal a violent impatience. If scale plays an important role at a viewer’s perception, these paintings compensate scale with richness in textures and are assaulting to the viewer’s senses appealing both to the eyes and the sense of smell. Green is the colour of choice. Its variant hues from fluorescent green, vivid emeralds, or rich dark turquoise, these paintings locate the mind of the viewer immediately through sight to allusions of his concerns and intention, on and about landscape, thus framing the beauty of the garden fragmented.
These series of works are bold and imaginative with use of paint. Layers of paint applied in impasto builds the surface, revealing contours, ridges and valleys of paint. They refer to paint and painting itself. They orientate the viewer towards Ng’s firm belief of realising notional possibilities for the pictorial vertical, thus paintings as windows.

There is ‘BEAUTY’ in Ng’s paintings. ‘Beauty’ is not represented. Nor is Beauty easily identified in the conventional sense or formal painterly aesthetics of balance and harmony, because Ng addresses beauty in and through paint. His medium of choice is oil on canvas. A labour intensive activity, painting requires endurance and patience. He paints beautifully.  Ng has beautiful ideas on and about painting. Ng suggests beauty through forms disassociated with Beauty, through congealed paint accrued in time. He is truly a daring and astute painter!

In discussions with Ng, points of reference vary. Our conversations over a cup of coffee is framed by ‘painting’; oscillating between painting as a subject and an object (its dichotomy); the painting as the ‘other’ in reference to the painter; or ideas that informs his cultural beliefs on painting; Singapore’s artistic landscape and climate; the exhibition structure of paintings; collection policies; support and many other issues. Thus, he lives, breathes, sleep with paintings. 

A pertinent issue for Ng is to bridge criticality, reception and appreciation of his paintings. This desire made it relevant to include a digression here in this piece of writing towards allowing myself to briefly mention of his collection of photographs. These unassuming collection compromised of snippets or slices of images found from the garden, terracotta pots, lush ferns juxtaposed with little maps of garden areas. Its location is irrelevant. These are revealing in terms of Ng’s field of vision and visuality of paint. They are not directly referenced or appropriated in any way or are depicted in Ng’s paintings. They collide and are abstract forms with reference to Ng’s paintings. They are to be understood as alchemical process of light and various chemicals. An expanse of colour, these prints offer a relating material which clearly and objectively suggest Ng’s treatment, application and conceptual approach of paint.  The unrecognizable items, forms, textures and objects found littered in Ng’s paintings BECOMES beautiful as we pictorially understand his impulses and motivations to lay a mark in a particular colour in a particular place on the canvas. These suggest a considered and thoughtful painter. 

Ng’s sense of discipline, commitment and strong belief of the state of contemporary painting in Southeast Asia is refreshing. His sense of experimentation with paint, an astute sense for organizing space and a sense of wonder for all things about PAINTING including bold colours, places Ng Joon Kiat firmly on the grounds of the garden of contemporary art. 

-by Zulharli Adnan

Zulharli Adnan is currently an academic staff member at Republic Polytechnic. He is a Singaporean artist, independent curator and writer. He spent 8 years collecting and expanding his knowledge in contemporary art whilst practising as an artist in London, and has exhibited internationally.