Dawn Ng
Orchid Islands, 2024
acrylic paint, dye, ink and sand on wood
70 x 50 x 1.5 cm (each, unframed)
72 x 52 x 5 cm (each, framed)
72 x 52 x 5 cm (each, framed)
Further images
An ode to process and fleeting beauty, Ng's body of work began as a study into the articulation of temporality. Rather than relying on numerical terms Ng turns to the...
An ode to process and fleeting beauty, Ng's body of work began as a study into the articulation of temporality. Rather than relying on numerical terms Ng turns to the most ephemeral material available to her in her native Singapore - ice - and from there has devised an emotive language of creation, destruction, trace and remembrance.
The passage is a cyclical one. Ng assiduously builds blocks of frozen pigment with the skill of a chemist, a painter and a sculptor creating a topographical medley of pigments, watercolours, dyes. The layers build, encrust and stagger, capturing a moment of being and recollecting - crystallised, engrained.
In Orchid Islands, the swirls of pigment are given a last breath as they cling to the paper; the watercolours and dyes leaving first, the acrylic hanging longest. The result is again topographical; we feel we've encountered a slab of quartz or a sulphuric tapestry. Large boulders of pigment are hacked and shattered to form meticulous arrangements of collapsed residue on wood. The result is more akin to a map: avenues, tributaries, ducts connect and swirl in a riot of blooms and cascades.
The passage is a cyclical one. Ng assiduously builds blocks of frozen pigment with the skill of a chemist, a painter and a sculptor creating a topographical medley of pigments, watercolours, dyes. The layers build, encrust and stagger, capturing a moment of being and recollecting - crystallised, engrained.
In Orchid Islands, the swirls of pigment are given a last breath as they cling to the paper; the watercolours and dyes leaving first, the acrylic hanging longest. The result is again topographical; we feel we've encountered a slab of quartz or a sulphuric tapestry. Large boulders of pigment are hacked and shattered to form meticulous arrangements of collapsed residue on wood. The result is more akin to a map: avenues, tributaries, ducts connect and swirl in a riot of blooms and cascades.