Shapeshifters
A collaboration between Appetite and Sullivan+Strumpf for Singapore Art Week, Shapeshifters brings together a selection of works from the Australian gallery’s roster of artists that centre on notions of fluidity and hybridity. Nudging the porous boundaries between artistic mediums, form, and function, these works both converse with, and shift the spaces they engage with. Presenting works across different mediums and practices, this dynamic exhibition will amplify a cross-cultural dialogue between Australia and Singapore, and celebrate diverse modes of creative expression.
Shapeshifters is open to public from 8 Jan, 2025 – 26 Jan, 2025.
Lara Merrett (b. 1971, Australia)’s fluid colour fields expand and challenge the traditional parameters of painting. Her works are composed by taking the canvas off its stretcher, and layering water-based pigments on its surface – an approach that grew from her observation and interest in the residues left on the drop cloths underneath her paintings. Merrett makes space for her materials to work their own magic, allowing the paint to pool and diffuse throughout the fabric surface, leaving chance marks and random trails. Likening colour to music, the artist describes each work as having its own ‘sound’ or personality, inviting viewers to respond not just on a visual register but instinctually, and with all their senses.
Lara Merrett
Monument 2024
Ink and acrylic on cloth and linen
107 x 168 cm
Working in textile, Tiffany Loy (b. 1987, Singapore)’s practice is defined by both experimental technique and material complexity. With a background in industrial design and textile weaving, Loy brings a sculptural sensibility to her works, investigating structure, depth, and volume of colour as they are perceived at the scale of a single thread as well as the larger woven work. Her intricate pieces are an invitation to consider the poetics and possibilities of textile – not merely as a woven surface but as a series of lines in space.
Over the course of her artistic career, Yvette Coppersmith (b. 1980, Australia) has explored several different painting genres and styles, including still life, portraiture, photorealism and abstraction. She is perhaps best known for her dynamic, colourful abstractions, with their densely built-up surfaces and references to mid-century Modernism. Coppersmith mixes her paint with linseed oil and sometimes sand to obtain her signature texture; as such, her paintings sometimes read like embroidery, or in the case of Frisolée, like mosaic. Many of her works also have a balletic sensibility, stemming from Coppersmith’s early interests in dance and performance. Movement and energy translate into rhythmic swirls of colour on Coppersmith’s canvases – in the words of the artist: “We need beauty and joy. That is essential for the collective psyche as we doom-scroll our way through this decade”.
Coppersmith Yvette
Frisolée, 2023-2024
Oil on jute
87 x 102 cm
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (b. 1988, Sri Lanka) is interested in global histories, and languages of figurative representation as they intersect with issues relating to the politics of idolatry, gender, the monument, race and religiosity. Working across a range of sculptural mediums including ceramics, bronze and fiberglass, Nithiyendran’s ideas manifest in shapeshifting forms that range in scale from small figurines to staggering public installations.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran
Warrior Figure with Third Eye 2024
ceramic, glaze
83 x 49 x 30 cm
Glenn Barkley (b. 1972, Australia) is an artist, curator and gardener. His hand-built ceramics are composed of fragments from art history, popular culture and botanical forms. Shaped by an irrepressible exuberance, their tactile, playful forms teem with decorated surfaces, teetering between function and ornament.
Michael Lindeman (b. 1973, Australia)’s text-based works are wry commentaries on the dynamics of the art world. With tongue firmly in cheek, Lindeman turns out pithy observations on relationships and power structures, from his position / perspective as an artist. These are often painted on mirrored surfaces, their alluring scintillance and disarming humour offering up an ironic moment of self-reflection.
Michael Lindeman
Regression Painting (Vacant…) 2023
finger painted acrylic on mirror
98 x 112 cm (framed)
Curated By:
Tan Siuli
In Collaboration With:
For a full dossier of available works, please contact siuli@appetitesg.com
