I Against I: An Offering To Deficit
Kiat
Solo Exhibition
17 - 25 February 2024, 11am to 7pm
This exhibition marks the first solo presentation of Kiat, exploring the intersections between music and painting, and the ways in which they can perform as medium and material. Kiat’s forays into these disciplines started more than two decades ago, beginning with his formative training at the Lasalle College of the Arts and Swinburne University of Technology, and his subsequent practice in design and music production. The co-founder of Syndicate, a progressive audio-visual collective cum independent music label in Singapore, Kiat has performed in numerous live electronic music showcases as well as music festivals at home and abroad. The title of the exhibition is drawn from a 2003 Massive Attack track, alluding to Kiat’s reflections on art and life as a constant process of negotiation between the thinking and the making of art, and between the self and the depths of consciousness. I Against I highlights a new dimension in his creative practice in the domain of painting, where he reconsiders sound and vision through different materials and modes of expression. In parallel with how DJs sample elements of pre-existing music to create new pieces, Kiat’s paintings apply the “resampling” technique, at times combining analogue and digital sources as structural devices in his compositions. Raw samples of colour and texture typically serve as the creative impetus of his work, followed by a continual artistic recalibration and reworking of these elements as the work develops. Just as how sound is invisible but inherently exists, Kiat’s paintings seek to represent the unseen, coming into being on canvas.
About the Artist(s)
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, Kiat started to explore more resourceful, innovative ways of creating art due to the lockdowns and limited access to material. This has led to him creating work using a hybrid technique of digital and analogue mediums—inspired by the same approach with which he would resample material to make music.
The adventurous themes in his work are closely linked to the artist’s fascination with emotions and freedom. His freeform creative approaches have led him to develop work across multiple mediums—from painting on walls and canvases, to music for dance floors, theatrical stages and art installations, to works that blur the line between art and design for brands and cultural institutions.
Kiat has developed work internationally and locally for Cake Theatre, The Peranakan Museum, Swarovski, ArtScience Museum, Dazed Online, Adidas, Versus, Dior, Selfridges, Singapore Tourism Board, Nike, Beams, SHOWstudio. Some of his recent presentations include Antinodes (Singapore Art Week 2022) and Sonic Sessions (Singapore Art Week 2024).