[19] Untitled Territory: Between Memory and Imagination by Joshua Yang

“This exhibition draws together […] Singapore’s best mid-career practitioners, […including] Joshua Yang, with their strengths in the practice of durational craft through drawing, painting, live performance and video. […] Yang navigates this contract between thought and time, picking on the everyday absurdities while illustrating how multifaceted a memory of a moment can be.”

– Grey Projects

Untitled Territory: Between Memory and Imagination is inspired by the phenomenon of travelling without leaving the comforts of your home. With search engines and maps, anyone with an internet connection can travel anywhere in the world virtually, accessing street views and reading reviews of nearby restaurants, imagining the taste of exotic foods on their palate.

With this surreal and dreamlike landscape painting, Yang attempts to combine the effects of travelling not only through space but also reaching back in time by referring to an undated postcard. However, through the faded colour print, one can guess that the date of the postcard was from the last century, at least.

The effect that the artist hopes to achieve is an uncanny ethereal landscape which looks like it could be a colony on Mars, suggesting a distant future, or a now destroyed ancient town somewhere in the Middle East, Earth. The decision is left to the viewer’s imagination.

Biography:
Joshua Yang was born in 1974 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 1994, he moved to Singapore and worked at reclamation sites in Tuas and the Jurong Islands, pouring sand into the sea. In 2003, while pursuing his Master of Fine Arts (Sculpture) at LASALLE College of the Arts, he founded the art collective, Vertical Submarine, which has been active in the local and international art scene.

In 2005, he won first prize in the UOB Painting of the Year for the Abstract category. Other awards include the coveted Credit Suisse Artist Residency Award 2009, The President’s Young Talents Award 2009 and the Singapore Art Show Judges’ Choice 2005. His drawings began to receive attention when he completed a forty-eight-hour drawing marathon in 2007. His works, which are predominantly site-specific time-based drawings employing a single continuous line, have been featured in local and regional Biennales, including the Singapore Biennale 2008 and the Dojima River Biennale 2009 (Osaka).

He has worked in various educational institutions, teaching a variety of subjects from art history and theory to drawing and painting. He currently works at the School of Arts Management in the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Specifications:
– Year: 2023
– Medium: Oil on Canvas (Unframed)
– Dimensions: 51 cm x 76 cm
– Avoid direct sunlight.
– Avoid humidity and moisture.
– Avoid touching the painting unnecessarily.
– Clean off dust by lightly brushing with a soft-bristle brush.
– If the bidder decides to frame the painting, do not frame it behind glass or acrylic.
– Auction winner can collect Untitled Territory: Between Memory and Imagination by Joshua Yang during Checkpoint Celebrates! 2025: The Fourth Trimester Gala or make shipping arrangements with our team