The IMPART Collectors Show 2019 presented a selection of visually arresting works of Asian contemporary art drawn from Singapore-based private collections, offering public audiences a rare window into the depth and risk-taking appetite of local collectors during Singapore Art Week 2019.

Titled Fabulous Monsters, the exhibition explored a significant line of enquiry in contemporary art: the retreat from social and political tumult into inner worlds of dreams and the fantastic. Drawing on the tradition of Chinese literati sages who withdrew to the mountains not in simple escape but in search of ways to navigate and transcend turbulent times, the works on display proposed the fantastic as a mode of critique; deploying the rich visual iconography of Asia to illuminate current social and political fractures in oblique, suggestive and poetic ways that move beyond polemic. Together, the works demonstrated how the imaginary can serve as both refuge and resistance, a space for reflection on the uncertainties of our time.

As organiser of the IMPART Collectors Show, Art Outreach created a platform that gave public audiences access to significant works held in private collections, while advancing its broader mission to encourage art collecting and foster deeper engagement with local and regional contemporary art. The show reflects Art Outreach's role as an arts intermediary committed to building meaningful connections between collectors, artists and the public — and to championing the plurality and vitality of artistic practice across Singapore and the wider region.