Tanah Ini Ku Punya II – Siri OBJEK & OBJEKTIF – New works by Ahmad Abu Bakar

PUBLISHED May 21st, 2015 03:24 am | UPDATED June 19th, 2020 07:34 pm

Chan Hampe Galleries presents a solo exhibition of work by Ahmad Abu Bakar, Tanah Ini Ku Punya II – Siri OBJEK & OBJEKTIF.

This exhibition is an extension of Bakar’s work from his 2012 exhibition Tanah Ini Ku Punya, (Land/Earth I Owned). This series was inspired by the artist’s visit to the village of his birth a few years prior, where he experienced conflicting sensa-tions of belonging and separation. Holding a Malaysian passport, but spending most of his life in Singapore, Bakar is no stranger to contrary affections and through the mediums of ceramics, photography, and performance, he often ex-plores physical and symbolic connections and disconnections between land, iden-tity, and faith.

This second edition, Siri OBJEK & OBJEKTIF, speaks to the notion of “land” as inspired by the Malay proverb “Di mana bumi ku pijak di situ langit ku junking,” that is, “where one stands (on the land) is where one should hold up the sky.” As such, this series of ceramics lean toward the physical—the “objek.” While the vessels are grounded by geometric form and shape, from each base extends an ethereal arm presenting more organic manifestations of existence, suggestive of authentic relations extending beyond nationalistic loyalties, histories, and identities. Through material, form, and structure, Bakar considers meaning, or the possibility of mean-ing, inherent in our associations with place.

ABOUT THE ARTIST – Ahmad Abu Bakar (b. 1963, Malaysia) graduated from LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts with a Diploma in Fine Arts (Ceramics) in 1989 and received his Bachelor of Fine Art (Sculpture) from the University of Tasmania (Australia) in 1995. Upon his re-turn to Singapore in 1996, Ahmad joined LaSalle College of the Arts as a full-time lecturer where he taught ceramics and 3D studies. He pursued his Master of Fine Arts with RMIT/ LASALLE-SIA during his teaching period in the college; he is cur-rently an adjunct lecture at Nanyang Polytechnic and the National Institute of Edu-cation (NTU).

As an artist, Ahmad has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Sin-gapore, Malaysia, China, Thailand, the Philippines, Korea, Australia, and Indonesia. In 2007 he took part in the international ceramics festival ACN: Selsius at the National Art Gallery, Malaysia, and in 2009 he was invited to be a part of Jakarta Contempo-rary Ceramics Biennale and the International Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition: Asian Ceramics Network. In 2012, his first solo exhibition Ini Tanah Aku took place at Jendela (Visual Art Space) at Esplanade, Singapore. As part of the 2013 Singapore Bi-ennale, Bakar’s work Telok Blangah, a collaboration with inmates from Changi Prison, was installed in the foyer of the Singapore Art Museum. In 2015, he was invited to take part in the group exhibition of Southeast Asian artists, Secret Archipelago at Pal-ais De Tokyo, Paris, France.

Ahmad co-curated a showcase of Singaporean Malay artists entitled Tok Se-lampit Millenniumin 2004 at Jendela, and in 2007, Mapped, a group show featuring contemporary ceramicists from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Tanah Ini Ku Punya II – Siri OBJEK & OBJEKTIF runs from 4 June – 4 July 2015 at Chan Hampe Galleries, at Raffles Hotel Arcade.

The exhibition is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11am – 7pm.

Admission is free.

For enquires please call +65 6338 1962.