The Collectible Experience
Andrea Danker, Billie Sng, Bridget Tay, Dylan Chan, Ezzam Rahman, Joanne Lim, Lizzie Wee, Andy Yang, Liana Yang & Cynthia Delaney Suwito
Group Exhibition
13 - 21 April 2024, 11am to 7pm
Exploring the concept of art as merchandise, The Collectible Experience invites you to explore the process of commodifying art and how it can serve as a catalyst for sustainable art-making practices. By making art more accessible and inclusive for both artists and enthusiasts alike, we hope to encourage an open dialogue on the commercial aspect of art.
Central to the exhibition is the concept of artwork as merchandise – a provocative approach that reframes the relationship between artists, their creations, and the act of collecting. By presenting works that blur the lines between art object and commercial products, we aim to spark a conversation on the potential of commodification in shaping artistic practices and sustaining creative livelihoods. The Collectible Experience seeks to break down barriers and foster a more transparent culture of engagement, by presenting artwork in tandem with merchandise to challenge preconceived notions of what artworks and merchandise are viable for artists to sell and invite visitors to re-imagine the role of art in their lives.
Through a diverse range of mediums and formats, artists participating in The Collectible Experience will showcase their experimentations of the process of distilling complex ideas into commercial objects. From colouring books to wearable art, each piece serves as a testament to the artist's commitment to making their work more accessible to a broader audience. As you navigate through The Collectible Experience, we encourage you to contemplate the role of commodification in art and its implications for artists, collectors, and the broader art ecosystem.
The Collectible Experience is supported by Hearth’s patron programme.
About the Artist(s)
Andrea Danker (b.1996) is a Singapore-based visual artist from Malaysia. Her work rethinks and privileges the subtle minuscule shifts of lived experiences, exploring the constructs of inhabitation within a passing time and space. She works across painting, drawing, and installation employing techniques of storytelling to present different views of perceiving everyday events and occurrences informed through personal narratives and social implications.
She graduated with a BA(Hons) in Fine Arts first class from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. She has participated in group exhibitions including Undescribed #8, 2023 under DECK Singapore and Across Narrow Waters, as part of The Substation’s Septfest 2022. She was nominated for the International Takifuji Art Award in 2021 and was awarded the Winston Oh Travelogue Award in 2022.
Billie Sng (b. 1997, Singapore) is an artist who graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from LASALLE College of the Art, in partnership with Goldsmith, College of London (2022). His interests lie in language, text, and poetics, and explores it through asemantic writings, analysis of the formal structures of language, and through abstract methods of writing and meaning-making.
He has exhibited for Singapore Art Week 2023 at Gillman Barracks under The Upside Space; Goethe Institut Singapore; Earl Lu Gallery for Critical Craft Collective; Alliance Française Singapour, and was commissioned by the National Arts Council for the New Arts Plan 2023. He is also part of a Singapore-based art/tech collective, Mouse Click Click.
Bridget Tay is a Singaporean artist, ad-hoc curator to the independent and educator. With a knack for education, she has been teaching for 15 years strong.
She gained her Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2014. A recipient of The LASALLE Scholarship in 2013 and is no stranger to both government and privately funded exhibitions, she recently curated and participated in EPILOGUE by The Artists Village for Singapore Art week 2022 and is the current president of The Artists Village. Bridget’s practice revolves around playing with cliches as commentaries on the socio-political landscape of the world, ultimately presenting the medium as the message in opposition to states of reality reflected in both art and the physical. Her formal explorations in painting look a the concept of space in conjunction to an expanded field of painting.
Dylan Chan (b.1997) is a Singapore-based artist who graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts from the Diploma programme in 2018, and a Bachelors in Fine Arts (Hons) (first class). He was awarded the Winston Oh (Practice) Award 2018, and nominated for the prestigious Takifuji Art Award 2021.
His practice sits on the cusp between image making and object making, and reexamines the ways in which the body positions itself within the domestic and its phenomenological response towards objects. His work focuses on the abstract instances from everyday life and draws from personal memories and reminiscences centered around intimacy. In trying to articulate the subtle nuances of the personal, Chan is interested in the ways the body navigates the boundaries of and relationships between the private spaces and the ground upon which it stands. In exploring these themes, Chan brings into focus the politics of our own agency and capacity for self-reflection, which surrounds the ways in which we dwell in spaces and what we live with.
Ezzam Rahman (b.1981, Singapore) is a multi-disciplinary artist known for his interest in the body and the use of common, easily accessible, yet unconventional media in his art practice. Working across sculpture, installation, digital media, and performance, he creates works that are often time-based and ephemeral, aiming to pique viewers’ thoughts on the themes of body politics, impermanence, traces, and abjection.
Joanne Lim (b. 1985) is a Singapore based artist, that have graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts, in partnership with Goldsmith, College of London . She is interested in translating and visualizing data that she collects in long-term projects that involve collaborative partnerships with individuals, communities to translate information, research materials and lived experiences into aesthetic forms as a way to present gathered data to the public. Her practice unfolds through the use of numerous mediums such as photography, video, assemblage, generative and performance art that addresses social-political issues and nature. Joanne is also part of an art collective, Mouse Click Click, a Singapore based art collective that seeks to bring together art, science and technology together.
Lizzie Wee is a Singaporean multidisciplinary artist, curator, designer, illustrator, art director and video editor. She has lived in many cities including Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Berlin, Boston, New York, and Singapore. She received her BFA from New York University and an MA Fine Arts from the Goldsmiths programme at LASALLE College of the Arts. Her present practice-based research investigates notions of identity and belonging; through an examination of archetypal female roles found in Southeast Asian pop culture and visual media. Her works are expressed through video, performance, writing for performance, and multimedia installation. She has exhibited her work in various international galleries, showcases, symposiums, and art fairs online and in Singapore, Taiwan, Shenzhen, Szczecin, New York, and Shanghai. Apart from her artistic practice, Wee has worked with Sotheby's Hong Kong, Kitchen Hoarder, a woman-run production team focused on lifestyle and food culture, and Pure Art Lab, a local children’s art school.
Cynthia Delaney Suwito is a visual artist who explores the theme of everyday objects and experiences. Using them as both her theme and material, she uses observational humour to explore such daily phenomena as the omnipresence of instant noodles, the misfortunes of plastic bags, the misuse of clothes pegs, and the perpetual turning of toilet paper rolls. Her work gives spaces for everyday objects to challenge its own mundanity. Her work takes varied forms, many of which are site specific, interactive sculptures and installations.
Born in Indonesia and based in Singapore, Cynthia completed her Bachelor in Fine Arts, First Class Honours at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Cynthia was featured on BBC Asia and Channel News Asia, and was in the 2017 FORBES 30 under 30 Asia in the Arts. She has exhibited at Bandung Contemporary Art Award Assemblage, 2019, in Indonesia, and at Superfluidity: The Parallel Universes Daily Mimicry, 2022, in Taipei. In Singapore, Cynthia exhibited at Hawker! Hawker! In 2021, Singapore International Photography Festival in 2022, and had a solo presentation while we wait in 2020.
Andy Yang Soo Kit (b. 1973, Malaysia) is a multi-disciplinary Singapore-based artist whose practice has traversed the disciplines of painting, drawing, installation, as well as performance and music over the past two decades. With an abiding interest in expanding the visuality of painting – especially within the realm of abstraction – his explorations in oil, acrylic, and ink upon a variety of supports have demonstrated his technical virtuosity and dexterity across the range of media.
Inspired by strong emotions, Yang’s pursuit of painting is underscored by the fundamental impulse to create. In advancing expression over rationalization as an alternative cognitive approach, he builds forms and advances narratives led by intuition. His painterly compositions, informed by musical notions of counterpoint and harmony, find resolution upon the surfaces of his choosing – yielding comforting attunements of emotions rather than raw and literal displays.
For his bold explorations in the field, Yang was commissioned by Audi to customise an e-tron GT, dubbed Electric Dreams, for the Singapore Motorshow 2023. His other prominent commissions include works residing within ESPA at Resorts World Sentosa, as well as One Farrer Hotel & Spa (Singapore).
To date, Yang has taken part in an array of solo, group exhibitions, and festivals including Rhythmic Resonance (2023) by The Private Museum, Make Yourself At Home: A Glimpse Into All Welcoming Scenarios (2023) by The Private Museum, Minting Good in collaboration with Singapore Economic Development Board at London Tech Week (2022), oneirism Rituals at the Singapore International Festival of Arts (2022), as well as numerous others. His performances have also been presented at prominent Singaporean institutions such as the ArtScience Museum (Ceremony, 2019), Asian Civilisations Museum (Mindfulness, 2017), the National Museum of Singapore (OIC Moon Grazing, 2013), and more.
With his openness towards collaborative practices and ingenuity in commissions, his works can be found in numerous private and public collections internationally.