Pareidolia
Journey of an Eccentric
Roy Payamal, curated by Salty Xi Jie Ng
Solo Exhibition
28 May - 5 Jun 2022
27 May - 5 June, 12 - 8pm
Opening reception: 27 May, 6.30pm
Performance: 27 May & 4 June, 8pm
Curator's Tour: 5 June, 3pm
Roy Remixed is a cosmos constellating his new paintings and video art Singapore Minstrel Remixed by Salty Xi Jie Ng with a performance entitled Art Eats, a discussion, and working live in the exhibition space, inspired by its environs.
Since 2012, Roy Payamal has been collaborating with artist Salty Xi Jie Ng, whose practice revolves around socially engaged art, performance and filmmaking. In 2015, Salty Xi Jie directed and produced Singapore Minstrel, a feature film about Roy’s life and busking in Singapore. The film, which premiered at the Singapore International Film Festival and travelled internationally, was an ode to his inner world and singular, longstanding busking practice. For Roy Remixed, Salty Xi Jie will create Singapore Minstrel Remixed, a video collaging Roy’s performance and installation scenes from the feature film to put a life both past and eternally living in dialogue with his current visual arts practice. Closeups and slow-motion effects are employed to play with time as material as a frame for considering lifespan and a life’s work, as well as juxtapose colours and movement belonging to Roy in digital format with that in physical space embodied within his emotional paintings.
About the Artist(s)
Busker and performance artist Roy Payamal has been a stalwart of the Singapore street performance scene for almost 40 years, and now that life has come quietly to an end. Due to the pandemic and newly revised busking rules, he will never return to his brave, wild installations on the streets of Orchard Road as an avant-garde Silver Man. Roy Remixed is a rebirth weaving Silver Man in dialogue with his evolving and diverse artistic practice.
Completely self-taught and moving in art circles all his adult life, Roy began painting seriously at the age of 58 after he could no longer busk. His paintings are raw, intuitive, and emotional, conveying an inimitable sense of humanity ringing with both playful naivety and deep emotion that characterise his performance practice. In his visual practice he is tickled by the vernacular right at his doorstep — from animals observed in his neighbourhood, to moments in his and loved ones’ lives. A lifelong cosmic affinity with clowning is sometimes explored, as is, relatedly, mental states and freedom, which his artistic process quietly shouts for.
