cheryl chiw
Cheryl Chiw ChilSian ( b.1970, Singapore ) is an interdisciplinary artist and creative director.
In her art practice, she makes sculpture, installation and video art with metal, detritus, iron oxide, forces of magnetism and gravity – the artist attempts to construct and deconstruct the transitory. Often allowing serendipity to guide her process.
She currently explores the precariousness of balance, tension between surfaces and forms. The subjectivity of value and the perception of in-between states are among themes present. Her artwork invites the viewer to “see” familiar things in unfamiliar ways and the transience of their meanings.
update
borrowed earth
Solo exhibition 2023, presenting:
elemental sculptures, earthworks, floating world AR
hearth at Gillman Barracks
5 lock road 01-06
13-21 May 2023, 11-7pm daily
supported by Art Outreach Singapore
borrowed earth considers our ‘borrowed’ existence; the time, the space and the elements.
A journey through everything that oscillates in-between states, in precarious existence. What is then the essence of ‘material’? What meanings do the forms conjure as they continue to be reshaped by time, nature and invisible forces?
Through a series of elemental sculptures, earthworks and floating world AR, the artist attempts to capture ‘states of equilibrium’ that are at once suspended and changing over time.
Invoking pareidolia in her metal works and suiseki in her rock works, she invites viewers to find familiarity in the unfamiliar and form their own meanings.
To see beyond looking, the beautiful poignancy of our shared existence.
You are cordially invited.
archive
then now then
Solo exhibition 2022
supported by Art Outreach Singapore, hearth at Gillman Barracks
artwork listings;
public art
間 jiān, antara, இடையில் Iṭaiyil
2020/21 ( permanent )
interactive sculpture with soundscape channelled through artwork, stainless-steel
1.75mW x 2.85mH x 1.6mD
first commissioned by:
National Arts Council, Public Art Trust
間 in its essence means between time , between space. an ideogrammatic sculpture to translate the idea of pausing and transiting through spaces. conceived during the circuit breaker, it is a record of our time. a global pandemic of shared experiences. an artwork to capture this moment for posterity. ( full video available upon request ).
microverse series
An appreciation of smallness. An acknowledgment of transience. Everything is connected, going from form to formlessness and back again. The force of magnetism plays with the conscious force of intent, like a dance that straddles between states. Always in flux, alive but also lifeless concurrently. There is beauty in that rhythmic oscillation.
microverse2020 artsite video art
an artsite made possible with:
National Arts Council, Singapore – Digital Presentation Grant
Returning To The Unfamiliar. this project mirrors these times when our usual way of life becomes suspended in an ‘in-between’ state. once again, we are reminded of our precariousness. An unseen force disrupts fibrous structures, unravelling façades upon which we have built artificially mastered reality.
An activation of sculpture through play. ‘serendipity II’ exists both in physical state and virtual perpetuity. Space is the canvas with surrounding architecture as the surface to play against. Through augmented reality ( Ar ), physical materials are ‘translated’ and sculpting is ‘performed’ virtually. They become weightless and massless. They can appear anywhere. They can levitate. They can spin and dance in defiance of fundamental limits. That raises the question: “how much is lost, how much is gained and what remains in transit?”.
TROPICAL LAB 11 – CITATION: DÉJÀ VU
Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore ICAS – Praxis Space
A site specific installation, mapped to the gallery floor space. Inspired by flâneurism. This piece is the result from a contemplative walk around the industrial estates, often tucked away and hidden from the the humdrum of urbanised society. A response to the ongoing fervent effort to segregate those that are deemed unsightly from pristine curated cityscapes.
MAYBE
Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore ICAS – Earl Lu Gallery
microverse IV, 2017 was captured using macro videography, iron oxide particles seemingly come to organic life and assume sculptural forms. The artist’s human actions are caught in a push-and-pull play with unseen forces. She may have some control over her gestures but, at the micro level, particles do as they please. Each gesture has an impact lasting only split seconds, evoking a sense of dynamic transient equilibrium. Magnetism influences the movements, the ebb and flow, the attaching and detaching. Magnetism may cajole, but the particles respond unpredictably. Together, they counteract as if compelled in an irresistible dance. Projected on a large glass screen, elevated above ground in the gallery. The customised tempered glass screen sandblasted on one side and transparent on the reverse. The selection of audio expressions can only be described as ‘collapsing’ and ‘compressing’. A series of otherworldly tones creates a ‘shifting’ straddling between ‘form’ and ‘formless’ states.
Lean In, 2017 embodied the essential of the essence. An interest in how the pieces, deceptively static, had the potentiality to fall apart especially in its precarious state. Held with neodymium magnets, the negotiation of equilibrium and tension are at play but only barely with the forces of magnetism, gravity with minimal artist intervention.
‘FRESHLY SQUEEZED’
Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore – Project Space
‘MULTI: +PROJECT 2016’
International Group Exhibition, Gallery Tomo, Kyoto, Japan
Assembled at varying time-speeds and frame rates, transitory states of time and space that straddle between liminal space are caught.
Without direction, without purpose. The end of the known leads to the unfamiliar. Have we become so conditioned by the confines that we have set for ourselves, that when the same confines are removed, we feel totally at lost? We clamour for a sense of security. Willing to shackle ourselves, craving normalcy – a willing cage – within which, we may feel protected.
minutiae sculpture series
This series using found and personal objects, seeks balance between the existing and constructed. Suspended by the forces of magnetism, dwelling in pareidolia, riffing with her materials, the artist lets serendipity guide her.
oxide archive no._ series
Presented as a series of sculpted ‘paintings’, this is a study of the varying states of tactility. An observation of the layers and intricacies rendered by the passing of time. I collected these fragments off rusted metal surfaces; wrought iron gates, railings, old bridges and abandoned sites during my travels. I was drawn to the layers formed from the interactions between materials, time and the elements.
teshima mon amour series
The Teshima Mon Amour Series of works was an opportunity to respond as I scavenged around the island. Roaming the quiet alleys, I was mesmerized by the myriad of rusted surfaces when I stumbled upon a seemingly uninhabited house with a jagged broken stairway that seduced me to trespass. Appreciating the aged wooden and rusted metal poles, almost dislodging from its base from the incessant pelting of the wind, Below, an unassuming stone shrine with its stone Tori gate and white paper amulets dancing in the breeze. I was inspired to make an artwork with the magnets in my backpack, recalling my earlier executions employing wax paper. The long sheets of wax paper fluttered in the wind, snapping, complaining, visualizing the invisible tension created by magnetism and kinetics of natural breeze.
bricolage series
‘using what exists to create what is to be’. This series of bricolage artworks explores the physical encounters of materials, organic and industrial. Reconfiguring their original intended purposes, creating new narratives.
cube and line series
‘Sculpting in space’ using a ‘contained palette’ of materials. Assembling and disassembling a variety of different and unexpected configurations. Held only by neodymium magnets. These works exemplify tension at work, transfixed in unpredictable predicaments. Structures and surfaces work as shapes, lines and canvas, while patterns and textures formed by the elements as nature’s artistic expressions. Photographs were the surviving documents to mark their transient existence.