Pure Days: Art & Life
[ 26.05 – 26.06 / 2016 ]
SPRMRKT
Inspired by nature’s beauty and mystique — particularly the complexity of humans — Liu Ling’s charcoal and pen drawings strive to capture life in her subject. Each artwork is a meditative effort to inject emotion into an observable shell through the rigorous and enlightening process of learning from experience.
Besides doodling when she was younger, it might surprise most that Liu Ling received little formal education in art until 2 years ago in 2014, when she attended a course at Art Is.
She also has a few print editions of her original charcoal work available for sale and they can be found in the catalogue. The latter was displayed at “Faces of Writers”, her first solo exhibition held at Booktique: Where Writers Shop, late last year.
Your bio mentions that you relocated to Singapore in 2002, what made you decide to relocate?
Before I came to Singapore my future was planned out – national exams followed by a decent university followed by a secure job. I was diong fine by struggling hard, although I failed to understand the point of struggling. I couldn’t share most people’s enthusiasm for competition and their sense of success, which was often built on other people’s pain or failure, oron choosing being constantly busy over a 10-min causal walk during lunch break. Besides, I was more shy and awkward back then. Few would join me on that walk. A deep sense of not belonging troubled me.
Doodling offered me comfort, but it was discouraged as a distraction from schoolwork. I was too obedient and timid to think about what kind of life I wanted. I just felt that the life I had the time was suffocatingly undesirable. I guess that’s why when Temasek Poly went to my senior high school for enrolment, my heart suddenly brightened up and said let’s get out of here.
Liu Ling
Liu Ling was born in Dalian, China, and relocated to Singapore in 2002. She graduated from Temasek Polytechnic and NUS, majoring in Computing. Before attending Art Is Gallery & Artist Studio in 2014, Liu Ling had little formal education in art, since then she has improved her craft dramatically. She's currently working as a freelance web designer with the aim to be a fulltime artist.
