Body and Soul
[ 01.08 – 30.09 / 2014 ]
SPRMRKT
This exhibition features six contemporary artworks by legal counsel, Jaen Ching Ng. Jaen’s influences range from everyday life encounters to dreams and imagination. Her bold use of colour, expressive painterly strokes with heavy shadows bring to mind a lively artistic spirit waiting to emerge.
Rarity in ornamentation appeals to me. Anything and everything around me inspires me. What then translates onto the canvas is a mix of reality and a touch of fantasy.
The fact that I am self-taught, I believe, has contributed significantly to my style of work. There is no muse, no boundaries, no rules. There can be shadow without light, there can be light without shadow.
Freedom of expression is the key to my work and not being guided by reasoned deliberation which, in my mind, will strangle any imagination and creativity of one’s soul.
From as far as you can remember, what was your first drawing/painting about?
I reckon drawing and painting are innate to all of us. Before we could speak, images, shapes and colours were like the sole language we know! It started with simple scribble to sketching random designs then dabbling with colours when I was a child. Be it a pencil, colour pencils, magic colours or a pen, if paper was in sight too, you can be rest assured I will be creating something! As for learning, mostly is through trial and error and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. But it did get to a stage where I felt that some reference would be good and that was when I took to books (my mother was a huge fan of Reader’s Digest!). As I recall, my very first few were flowers. I was drawn by the sheer variety of it and you can almost create a certain form and no one would question its actual existence!
Jaen Ching Ng
Body and Soul
Jaen, who works as a legal counsel, read law in the UK, but her “first love” was art. In her artist statement, she describes her paintings as being “driven by my fascination with the anatomy of the human body.” She explores that very subject with a palette knife on all her paintings in the body of work being exhibited. “I cannot express myself, my emotions, my state of mind, any better than through the most powerful language we know – the body,” she said.
