Kukje Gallery is very pleased to announce its participation in the inaugural edition of ART SG at Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Singapore, from January 11 to 15, 2023. Kukje Gallery will present a solo booth showcasing the work of Daniel Boyd, one of Australia's foremost contemporary artists. Staged as part of the fair's FOCUS sector—which features curated thematic presentations—the exhibition will present a comprehensive introduction to Boyd's practice. Widely celebrated for his investigation of the Western gaze, the artist challenges dominant colonial narratives in Australia and beyond, focusing on the experiences of Indigenous peoples and seeking to restore perspectives often overlooked in historical discourse. In the same spirit as ART SG's ambitious new fair, Kukje Gallery's presentation will provide a special opportunity for visitors to experience Boyd's most recent paintings following his participation in the group exhibition Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia at the National Gallery Singapore last year, which marked the artist's first encounter with Singaporean audiences.
Kukje Gallery's booth will feature a compact yet comprehensive presentation of Boyd's newest works that employ the artist's signature technique of covering his compositions with translucent, convex dots applied directly onto the canvas. For the artist, the applique of dots acts as 'lenses' through which one views the world. Each 'lens' focuses on how we perceive the world, highlighting the process of how information is communicated and also how visual signification—such as black and white, darkness and light—is conveyed. The opaque, negative spaces in between Boyd's 'lenses' imply lost history or knowledge; in this way, the viewer understands how the artwork actively connects the domains between the positive and negative, thereby realigning and refocusing their views of the past and present. Daniel Boyd is currently the subject of a solo exhibition titled Daniel Boyd: Treasure Island at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Featuring more than 80 works from across the artist's almost two-decade career, Boyd's first major solo exhibition with an Australian public institution will remain on view through 29 January 2023.
Several works in Kukje Gallery's booth speak directly to Boyd's own family lineage, foregrounding the historical records of brutality, exploitation, and oppression towards Aboriginal peoples that underlie Australian colonial history. These include Untitled (IHTPIAGATBO) (2022), Untitled (SFPIVOCNH) (2022), and Untitled (IODIWHTCTBH) (2022), respectively depicting a coconut tree, sunset triptych, and waterfall on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. Boyd's great-great-grandfather, Samuel Pentecost, was forcibly taken from his home on Pentecost Island and brought to Far North Queensland to work on the plantations. The three paintings collectively function as an homage to the artist's ancestor and the vestiges of colonialism which maintain their relevance today.
The booth will also highlight Untitled (ASFTAB) (2022), a work that depicts a Vanuatuan man brandishing his bow and arrow to take aim at a target residing outside of the pictorial frame. The man's pose echoes that of a heroic stance of the Greek warrior Achilles while also effectively honoring a historic individual, a blurring of interpretation that characterizes much of Boyd's incisive practice. More importantly, the work shows Boyd's interest in the refraction of light and how it behaves when it hits the surface of water, distorting the viewer's vision and perception of scale and distance. This formal interest echoes Boyd's studies of the postcolonial French philosopher Édouard Glissant, who often employed the metaphor of water in his writing. Also on view will be Untitled (WARIFFTS) #2 (2022) which depicts breadfruit, a recurring motif throughout Boyd's body of work. The breadfruit was first discovered in Tahiti and quickly became a potential source of cheap, nutritious sustenance for slaves on sugarcane plantations in Jamaica and other colonies of the British West Indies. By directly confronting themes of exploitation and their historical resonance, Boyd's paintings powerfully frame the vectors of global oppression and its ongoing legacy.
Currently on view at Kukje Gallery are works by the Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai in his solo exhibition Image, Symbol, Prayer in the gallery's K3 space. Showcasing a selection of works from the artist's History Paintings and Void (sky painting) series in a room where the artist has created a floor made from compressed ash and clay, the exhibition will remain on view through 29 January 2023.
Kukje Gallery represents these artists: