FRIEZE LONDON 2024

The presentation encompasses a new series of Residue paintings, Lightbox and Photographic prints, which form visual parallels with topographical connections to landscape and geology.

Investigating time and its emotive associations, Ng uses ice - an ephemeral material in her native Singapore to articulate time’s shifts and nuances through colour, shape and form.

Over the span of a month, 60 kilogram blocks of frozen pigments are assembled by Ng in her studio layer by layer - evolving into a near-geological confluence of acrylics, watercolours, inks and dyes. Stratified, these blocks reflect the topography of our planet, where time is read through age-old formations of gravitational pushes and pulls. The final stage of the process results in residue paintings, which are the last breath of each block. Vast sheets of paper steep in collected pigment within hand-patterned trays, yielding a new surface that Ng then peels back when damp to reveal stratas of softer colour.

Paintings on wood, the latest development in Ng’s practice, reflect her consideration of each canvas as a micro-universe. These works emulate the primary forces that sculpt planetary landforms over millennia – wind, water, time, gravity, and heat – by applying them to arranged conglomerates of frozen pigment. Fans, stands, heat lamps and ramps are employed to control and influence the release of melting pigments. Here, tributaries and ducts connect and swirl, collectively heaving into place.

_‘Ice is a key material in my practice simply because it cannot last in the tropical climate where I live. Time, residue, and memory are almost immaterial in a young, fast-paced city like Singapore that experiences no seasons and constantly yearns for the brand new. My work strains in the opposite direction, where I wish to give every inflection of time a hue, texture and immutable weight.’ _Dawn Ng (2024)