Arrive, Arrive

Arrive, Arrive is a series of ‘painterly objects’ that take the form of coloured wing-like structures suspended at the National Gallery Singapore’s Padang atrium. Painted on translucent aeronautical fabric and stretched over wooden frames, the work takes the experience of viewing paintings out of the gallery and into a public space. Playing with the conventional language of painting - its surface, support and two-dimensional plane, viewers are invited to visually engage with the artwork from various vantage points and think about ‘what makes a painting?’ from a different perspective.

Central to the experience of the work is the feeling of suspension. The aerodynamic shape of these painterly objects suggest a sense of flight and the sensation of gliding through air. They are painted with overlapping shades of atmospheric colours, which catch the natural skylight filtered from the atrium’s glass ceiling. Hues and tones shift as we move around the atrium, drawing attention to our embodied experience of colour. The title alludes to a sense of anticipation and emergence, suggesting an unexpected appearance of these objects from elsewhere. Striking a contemplative and meditative tone, the work was commissioned by the gallery for its Light To Night Festival 2021: ‘_____-in-Progress’.