ART OUTREACH UNVEILS NEW SUSTAINABLE EXHIBITION SERIES “OFF THE WALL” FEATURING LARGE- SCALE MURALS THAT CAN BE ORDERED AS FINE ART PRINTS CUSTOMISABLE BY SIZE AND DESIGN, WITH REVENUE CHANNELLED BACK TO ARTISTS AND ITS NON-PROFIT ART PROGRAMMES.
Singapore, September 2023 – Art Outreach Singapore, a dedicated non-profit arts intermediary, proudly presents OFF THE WALL, an innovative and sustainable exhibition series. OFF THE WALL redefines art collecting by featuring live-painted wall murals that can be ordered as custom fine art prints across a variety of price-points, offering accessibility to art enthusiasts while supporting artists and Art Outreach’s programmes.
A Live Art Experience
At Art Outreach's gallery space in Gillman Barracks, 5 Lock Road, visitors have the unique opportunity to engage with artists during the creative process. Witness talented creators live-painting captivating murals, and later, choose to own a piece of this living art in the form of customisable fine art prints.
Empowering Artists
OFF THE WALL provides artists with an unprecedented platform for live painting and large-scale creations, allowing them to express their creativity without bounds. This initiative ensures a recurring revenue stream for artists and Art Outreach, establishing a sustainable and equitable ecosystem that bolsters the local art community.
Modern Wisdoms Inaugural Showcase
Kicking off on September 7 and running until October 24, 2023, the inaugural Modern Wisdoms showcase, curated by Zarina Muhammad, features renowned artists ANTZ, Chris Chai, and Lewis Choo. These artists, known for their urban and street art practices, will transform the gallery space with dynamic murals, offering fresh interpretations of Chinese folklore, literature, and iconography. Each artist will present their unique perspective on significant cultural motifs and narratives that have been cherished and passed down through generations, including Journey to the West ⻄游记 and the legend of Nezha 蓮花太子哪吒.
Exploring Chinese Culture
Art Outreach has also collaborated with Say Tian Hng Buddha Shop ⻄天園佛舖, a fourth-generation run Taoist and Buddhist effigy-making heritage workshop in Chinatown, to offer educational workshops that introduce the public to the ancient legends, literature, and philosophies of Chinese culture, fostering a deeper understanding of the values and cultural significance behind the stories and artworks on display. In doing so, the exhibition invites visitors to embark on a thought-provoking journey of discovery and cultural appreciation.
Seamless and Sustainable Art Acquisition
To make acquiring the prints a seamless experience, Art Outreach will develop a dedicated microsite, offering a user-friendly platform for art lovers anywhere to select their desired crop and size of prints, and allow buyers to place their orders online. The prints will be available in different sizes and across a range of prices from $100 to $1,000, making art collecting more accessible and encouraging new collectors to enter the market and support the arts. The made-to-order approach of only printing artworks upon receiving orders is also in line with Art Outreach’s commitment to environmental sustainability, minimising waste and reducing environmental impact associated with excessive production and inventory.
A Transformative Art Experience
OFF THE WALL reimagines traditional art exhibitions, creating an inclusive and interactive space that forges deeper connections between artists and art enthusiasts. Mae Anderson, Chairman of Art Outreach, shared her enthusiasm: OFF THE WALL epitomises our mission: Empowering artists, engaging audiences. This innovative concept bridges gaps, sustains artists, and our cause. We are thrilled to launch this transformative exhibition series and look forward to sharing subsequent editions with the public.”
The launch of OFF THE WALL was made possible with support from the National Arts Council under the Sector Transformation Fund. This fund, dedicated to advancing the arts sector, focuses on supporting arts companies' transformation efforts in generating market demand by creating new experiences and developing diverse revenue streams.
Exhibition Information
Off the Wall: Modern Wisdoms
7 September – 24 October 202311am – 7pm dailyArt Outreach Singapore, 5 Lock Road #01-06, Singapore 108933
For more information, including artist schedule and workshop details, please visit:
artoutreachsingapore.org/off-the-wall
Media assets available at:
tinyurl.com/off-the-wall-2023-media-assets
About Art Outreach
Established in 2003, Art Outreach is a non-profit arts intermediary with IPC status that is dedicated to promoting art appreciation in Singapore and strengthening networks in the local art ecosystem. We enable practitioners to sustain careers in the arts by offering financial support, an independent and free space to nurture and incubate their work, and by facilitating professional development opportunities with industry leaders. We also champion the value of art by presenting a year-round roster of accessible and innovative programmes catered to diverse audiences—encompassing educational talks for schools, public art tours, exhibitions, and community art workshops—with the aim of encouraging a deeper understanding and appreciation of art and artists in the community.
About Say Tian Hng
Established in 1896, Say Tian Hng Buddha Shop is a 4th-generation family business in Singapore that hand- crafts Taoist and Buddhist wooden statues using centuries-old techniques. As one of the oldest heritage businesses in Singapore, Say Tian Hng has supplied countless examples of their work to the largest temples in Singapore and the most modest home altars. It has also been featured in National Geographic, Asian Civilisations Museum, National Gallery Singapore, National Heritage Board, South China Morning Post, The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, among others. Say Tian Hng has a contemporary education arm, the Academy of Classical Chinese Culture, which presents unique workshops that introduce adults and kids to ancient Chinese legends and classics and the important life values they embody via immersive story-telling, role-play, games, music and movement.
saytianhng.com | classicalchineseculture.com
About the Curator
Zarina Muhammad (b. 1982) is an artist, educator and researcher whose practice is deeply entwined with a critical re-examination of oral histories, ethnographic literature and other historiographic accounts about Southeast Asia. Working at the intersections of performance, text, installation, ritual, sound, moving image and participatory practice, she is interested in the broader contexts of ecocultural and ecological histories, myth-making, haunted historiographies, water cosmologies and chthonic realms. She currently lectures on art history and cultural/contextual studies at LASALLE College of the Arts.
About the Artists
ANTZ (b. 1982) is one of Singapore’s leading street artists and the co-founder of urban arts crew RSCLS. Born and raised in the cultural melting point that is Singapore, ANTZ has been exposed to a variety of unique artistic influences over his 17 years in the game. He is known for his distinctive style that draws deeply from classic Chinese culture, identity, and dialect, and often incorporates mythology and stories with urban mixes into his work.
Chris Chai (b. 1987) is a muralist, illustrator and artist whose visual practice can be summarised into one essential idea - the exploration of human complexity through repetition of line and form. His work draws from the multitude of organised structures that constantly surround us, from architecture, to biology, social networks and modern and ancient belief systems, in an attempt to examine the relationship between order and chaos and reach an intimate understanding of balance.
Lewis Choo (b. 1990) is a visual artist whose practice is focused on hyperlocal experiences, a precipitation of careful introspection in his day-to-day environment. He often works with traditional woodblock printing techniques, extensively referencing Chinese and Japanese folklores, while re-examining our roles and relationships, stemming from our predecessors' desire to inculcate the right values in the next generation.
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