SMU Libraries is pleased to present a lexicon of, an exhibition of contemporary works by artists Boedi Widjaja, Chua Ek Kay and Kanchana Gupta. Each artist through their practice, have built a visual lexicon of material, time, movement, recursion, loss, construct and remembering.  

About the Artists

Boedi Widjaja
Drawing from first-hand experience of childhood migration, Boedi Widjaja’s (b. 1975, Indonesia/Singapore) practice contemplates on house, home and homeland. Through a long-running, interdisciplinary series developed in parallel, he probes into the concerns of diaspora, cultural hybridity, memory and history.

Chua Ek Kay
Chua Ek Kay (b. 1947, China; d. 2008, Singapore) was one of Singapore’s leading contemporary Chinese ink painters. One of his most enduring themes was the Singapore city streets, making the Street Scene series spanning over two decades of his artistic practice. The paintings often pictured old shophouses, narrow alleyways and other historic urban sites that he has layered with a sense of alienation and ambivalence in witnessing the changing Singapore landscape.

Kanchana Gupta
Kanchana Gupta's (b. 1974, India/Singapore) practice yokes materiality with process. The materials that she deploys each brings its own particular identity, social symbology, texture, structure, and colour—from gendered materials like lace to construction materials like jute and tarpaulin. She then manipulates these materials using a combination of studio and industrial processes irreversibly altering the inherent properties and contexts.

Exhibition Details

Dates: 1 February - 25 February 2024
Venue: SMU de Suantio Gallery, 90 Stamford Road, Singapore 178903
Opening hours: Wed - Sat: 12pm - 7pm | Sun: 12pm - 4pm | Closed on Mondays & Tuesdays
Closed on 10 & 11 Feb for Chinese New Year

Programmes

Artists’ talk
15 Feb, Thursday
5pm-6pm
Open to all via registration: https://forms.gle/kTBWsHsQA9MejdTP8
 
Sit in with artists Boedi Widjaja and Kanchana Gupta as they share more about their artistic practice and the artworks in a lexicon of.

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Curator’s walkthrough
21 Feb, Wednesday
12pm-1pm & 4pm-5pm
22 Feb, Thursday
12pm-1pm & 4pm-5pm
Open to all via registration: https://forms.gle/Te4pM58NacFcScfS7
 
Join Kamiliah Bahdar (Curator, Art Collections and Programmes, SMU Libraries) on a walkthrough of this exhibition, where she’ll share her insights into the artists, the artworks, and the themes of the exhibition. 

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‘a lexicon of’ workshop
24 Feb, Saturday
1pm-3.30pm
Open to all via registration: https://forms.gle/yJcXoikPtLm6Stka8
 
Poet Cara Ow will lead a reading and writing workshop, circling around building a personal lexicon of material, time, movement, recursion, construct, remembering, and particularly loss. In this workshop, we will be reading poems by writers from diasporic communities, and attempt to find ways through words on how one might reattune and resensitise ourselves with and to the complexities of loss, longing and grief.

Cara is a body most regularly occupied by experimental poetry. Their works explore place-making, miscommunication and connection. The runner-up in the 2021 Hawker Prize, some of Cara’s works can be found in The Tiger Moth Review’s Issue 3, BooksActually’s My Lot is A Sky, and elsewhere. Most recently, Cara performed at the Esplanade for dink, and exhibited their work with Bras Basah Open. They also run bad peaches, a creative-critical writing workshop focused on generation and failure.