The Banquet
Damien Soh, produced by Kelly Limerick
Group Exhibition
8 - 23 July 2023, 11am - 7pm
Damien Soh (Amien) aims to present his very first solo exhibition in 2023, consisting of digital painting presented in alternate formats. The show will unveil a total of 10-12 new works, all linking up to portray a grand banquet in slow motion, centering around a newly-ascended goddess figure.
Produced by artist Kelly Limerick, the show also aims to involve artisans of different mediums to elevate the style of presentation, including wood carving, AR (Augmented Reality) elements, and generative music. The resulting exhibition would be an immersive experience into Amien’s fantasy world, which he often imagines as a living, breathing alternate Universe.
About the Artist(s)
Damien Soh:
Damien Soh ( b.1988), more popularly known as
Amien, is a visual artist based in Singapore. His artworks are immediately recognisable for their dream-like quality and touches of surrealism, giving birth to a fantasy Universe filled with characters both familiar and unknown.
Amien’s creations stem from an alternate reality existing within his mind, built upon his experience growing up in Singapore– a city both highly modern yet filled with traditional and oriental influences. Drawing from that breathing, living world, he translates these visions into
abstractions of colour, before refining them with obsessive technicality resulting from his years of teaching and practising in both the traditional and digital medium.
With a specialty in conceptualising new worlds and portraiture, Amien’s portfolio has seen a focus on digital paintings in recent years. He has also dabbled in alternative forms of presentation, such as a triptych printed on skateboards commissioned by Wise Singapore. In
2018, he received widespread recognition for the conceptualisation and execution of a short animation featurette titled Pagoda of Peril for Universal Studios Singapore as the Lead Illustrator. His skillset has also enabled him to take on freelance work with multinational
corporations such as Unilever on multiple brand campaigns, handling roles like Art Direction and Storyboarding.
Holding to the belief that constant practice is key to mastering illustration regardless of age, Amien co-founded Art Attic in 2018, running illustration classes for adults. The studio saw 260 students pass through its doors within its 1.5 years of operation.
Currently, his work considers the juxtaposition of traditional rituals in the frontier of a digital
age, a reflection of the city he resides in. Where superstition still lives in the little altars by the
street, mired in the tall shadows of a cityscape; is there a space for stories to come through?
Kelly Limerick:
Taking up the role of a producer for the first time, artist Kelly Limerick enjoys visiting art shows and festivals internationally, and is invigorated by a wide variety of mediums outside her personal practice. As a passionate closet writer with a focus on topics relating to art and existentiality, she has written about her encounters with art, such as It Begins with an Island (2016-2017), and most recently Textile Art Repository (ongoing). Her current foray into art writing and production endeavours to shine a light on artists in the undercurrent, especially those with a focus on craft and technicality, as well as linking up artisans and artists to explore different mediums in presentation.
In 2016 and 2019, Kelly volunteered for and worked with the Setouchi Koebi Network, an NPO that supports the Setouchi Art Triennale. Her role included managing the international volunteers and co- ordinating with artists for art production. This bolstered her experience in management and planning, and motivated her to take the lead in her personal initiatives.
In 2019, Kelly co-founded a skill-sharing collective known as the School of Common Understanding (SCU), in which Amien was one of the 13 selected creatives. With the goal of bringing together different disciplines into unexpected collaborations, the collective focuses on sharing and elevating skills and expertise. It culminated in a group exhibition hosted by Grassroots Bookroom in Jan - Mar 2020, where each creative presented a new work that was a combination of their primary medium and the new one learnt.