Back to mother
2014 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Zai Kuning
Concerned with the early history of Singapore, Zai Kuning spent many years living with and researching the history of the Riau peoples who were the first inhabitants of Singapore. Inspired by the women of Riau, Back to Mother seemingly traces the central role of maternal figures in nourishing of Riau’s history as an early archipelago kingdom that was Hindu, Buddhist, and animist prior to 14th-century Muslim invasion. Organic materials such as beeswax form a layer of balm protecting threads of red paint symbolic bloodlines in a turtle-formed mandala—a primordial womb that recalls the Hindu and animistic origin of Singaporean society.
Zai Kuning is one of Singapore’s leading avant-garde practitioners. He refuses to categorize his work, and his output crosses multiple disciplines including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, film and video, experimental sound, and performance. His practice often examines the concept of the “tortured body,” and many of his pieces explore the relationship between somatic experiences and language. He founded the Metabolic Theater Laboratory (MTL) in 1996 to examine the relationship between physical movements and language in Southeast Asian rituals. After disbanding the MTL in 2001, he returned to individually defined practices such as solo performance, writing, sound, and research. His most recent work responds to histories of indigenous people in Singapore and Indonesia including the Orang Laut and Dapunta Hyang Jayenasa.
Colors:
Other related works, blended automatically
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Zai Kuning
2014Justice (2014) presents viewers with a curious assemblage: a wooden gallows with slightly curved spindles protruding from the topmost plank, which in turn is covered with rudimentary netting, the threads slackly dangling like a loose spider’s web or an rib cage that’s been cracked open...
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Chadwick Rantanen
2010Telescopic Pole is an adjustable telescopic pole that extends vertically from floor to ceiling and is held up by its own internal pressure...
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Alexandre da Cunha
2005His Deck Painting I recalls the simplistic stripes of conceptual artist Daniel Buren, or the minimal lines of twentieth century abstract painting, but is in reality a readymade, fashioned from repurposed fabric of deck chairs...
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Firenze Lai
2013Central Station, Alignment, and Sumo are “situation portraits” that present whimsical characters within distorted and troubling worlds...
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Scott Reeder
2013Reeder’s works often start with language—and his Pasta Paintings are no different...
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Alexis Smith
1995In 8 Ball Surfboard (1995),Alexis Smith combines her long-term interests in California culture and conceptual assemblage...
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Kori Newkirk
2013LAB (2013) conjures the body as the trace of a sooty hand appears, spectrally, on a crumpled paper towel...
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Firenze Lai
2013Central Station, Alignment, and Sumo are “situation portraits” that present whimsical characters within distorted and troubling worlds...
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Alexandre da Cunha
2010In Laissez-Faire (Rainbow Flag) da Cunha has turned a beach towel into both a painting and a flag...
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Federico Herrero
2009Federico Herrero’s energetic paintings reflect his experiences on the streets of his native San José, Costa Rica, and in the surrounding tropical landscape...
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Alexis Smith
1990Iron Sorrows (1990) brings together what are for Alexis Smith common motifs and materials such as scavenged and repurposed metal, and street signage...
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Natasha Wheat
2011Natasha Wheat’s Kerosene Triptych (2011) is composed of three images, one each from the digital files of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Field Museum tropical research archive...
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Mike Kelley
1996Towhead n’Ganga, enclosed in darkness, lorded over by the sexualized folded high priestless form reflects many of Kelley’s works, in both its compositional and semantic qualities...
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Mark Bradford
2012This untitled work from 2012 is a print originally made as part of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art’s artist limited edition series...