A Figment of Film

While the disciplines of cinema and the visual arts have produced their respective innovations in image-making and modes of representation, they share intricate relationships of exchange, as contemporary artists and filmmakers alike, deal with the complexities of image and narrative making. A Figment of Film presents five artists whose works deal with the very subject matter of film.  Each presentation engages with a broad dimension of cinema, ranging from the investigation of the still and moving image, to the reframing of filmic imagery.

In the exhibition, artists deal with the translation of cinematic images into painting, and vice versa, presenting new ways of looking at composition, perspective, spatial dynamics as well as time.  Other works explore film history and the blurred boundaries between historical fact and Hollywood mythmaking.  Through these works, A Figment of Film raises questions that allow us to consider these languages of art-making, as well as new contexts of creation, innovation and reception in artistic production.

Justin Loke is a member of the art collective, Vertical Submarine. Together with the art collective, he received the Credit Suisse Art Residency Award, the grand prize of the President’s Young Talents 2009 organized by the Istana and Singapore Art Museum, as well as the Celeste Prize 2011 (New York). Justin is also the recipient of Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) Singapore Foundation Arts Award 2009. From 2010 to 2013, he was one of the Associate Directors of TheatreWorks (Singapore), and part of the Associate Artist Research Programme at The Substation.

Central in the works of Japanese artist duo SHIMURAbros is the nature and production of images, particularly in film and film history. SHIMURAbros is a duo consisting of Yuka Shimura and her brother Kentaro. In addition to screenings at Festival de Cannes and the Berlinale Festival, their works have been exhibited at the National Arts Center in Tokyo, the National University of Singapore’s Centre for the Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (Australia) and Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier. 

Martin Constable combines photography, painting and visual effects to research ways in which aesthetics as well as the role of the artist are being redefined by technology. He has participated in numerous exhibitions in Singapore, such as “Dear Painter” (2015),  “The Phygital World (2014),  “Pennangalanamania!” (2013) and “Micocosmos” (2012), to name a few. His works can be found in the collections of David Bowie, Lord Gowrie (former Minister of the Arts, UK), Proctor & Gamble and the National Arts Collection, UK. Constable is also part of the art collective Grieve Perspective.

Hilmi Johandi is known for his interest in films of the 1950s and 1960s that examine pre- and post independence Singapore society. Using cinematic language to develop methods of compressing temporal and physical spaces into non-linear narratives in his paintings, his works are compositions of film images, archival footages and photographs. Hilmi graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Fine Arts. He has participated in a number of exhibitions in Singapore where he lives and works.