EXHIBITED WORKS
Richard Koh Fine Art, 71 Duxton Road, SINGAPORE 089530
t. +65 6221 1209

And They Say The Stars Are Worlds
by JONATHAN CHING

Oct. 12 to 25, 2011

Parallel Worlds

“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
"Yes."
"All like ours?"
"I don't know, but I think so.
They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree.
Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted."
"Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?"
"A blighted one."
- Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

In his latest one-man exhibition, titled after a quotation from Hardy's classic novel, Jonathan Ching explores the idea of creating parallel worlds: other realities undeciphered or undiscovered in the face of our own immersion with the immediate and the present.

The works in the show, ranging from oil on canvas paintings to installations of found objects, juxtapose images from familiar locations, art works of the past and present, and everyday objects to create new scenes and contexts. Intentionally disparate and unrelated, Ching's choice of images defy any obvious logic of sequence or narrative between themselves: a garden set, seascapes filled with bodies, an urban park divided by sunlight and shadow, the expanse of space enclosed in a desolate atrium. By doing this, the artist offers viewers a preview of different worlds, like what a folio of short stories or random recollections does.

He uses multiple sources of images to underscore the simultaneous representations that exist in our world. In one work, for instance, Ching intentionally builds upon layers and layers of visual references—from Hokusai's woodblock prints to Gericault's oil paintings to Philippe Halsman's underwater photography—and combines these different influences and images into a singular scene, splicing together different visual elements into a seemingly unified sequence.

Ching also continues to experiment with fusing painting and sculpture—something he started in 2009—into a single work. By attaching to his paintings bronze and copper pieces cast from found objects—seahorses and foliage, for instance—he does beyond the two-dimensional limits of canvas and paint and additionally positions these objects as markers of meaning.

The strength of Ching's art is how it engages both memory and possibility: open ended representations of the everyday, rendered unfamiliar and strangely surreal. Though seemingly disparate in subject matter, his works are unified in their tangible sense of desolation and enchantment, inviting the viewer to venture further into their parallel worlds.

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