Singapore artist Wong Lip Chin is a renowned name in the art industry for his boundary-pushing interdisciplinary works. Art aficionados are probably familiar with his works – from the appropriation of an entire bus stop to getting tattooed as part of an exhibition opening. His recent work Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat (2020) is a performance at 2 Cavan Road, where the artist reads aloud excerpts from Hal Herzog's text on animal rights to a real cow as part of his homage to Joseph Beuy’s seminal work, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare.
Catch Wong's first few works at his first solo collaboration with Yeo Workshop. Sometimes I (you) don't dive hard enough takes place virtually, physically and mentally to convey Wong Lip Chin's message to the audience. The title of the show is a sound clip which can be accessed by scanning the QR code, designed by the artist. You'll then be transported to an interactive virtual exhibition that comes in the form of a video game. Drawing inspiration from the 1980s Vaporwave aesthetic and sound, the digital environment design offers an alternate dimension: a city designed by the artist himself.
The exhibition also features also a recorded performance of a medical procedure, where Wong undergoes and documents his aesthetic medical procedure in collaboration with Jackie Lee from The Boy Who Cried Action.
Most of the paintings showcased at Yeo Workshop were produced in 2014, when Wong was just starting out as a young artist. When viewed as a whole, the exhibition offers a glimpse of his mental universe at that stage of his life. It's an autobiographical tale told in a series of flatly delineated, vibrantly coloured images that evoke the visual language of graphic design or comic books. Other works in the series serve as deeply personal revelations of Wong’s life as a young artist: his body image issues and sexual preoccupations, intellectual interests and Singaporean identity.