“What is distinctive about these post-country visual environments? How would painting reflect the collage nature and psychotic conditions of these big urban spots across the world?”

Having long endeavoured to dismantle the confines of geographical boundaries and identity politics, Ng Joon Kiat constantly strives to liberate his mediums and aesthetics at the same time. Plastic Remains is a series of works he produced between 2015 and 2018 that look at global cities in present day. Cities seem to undergo a similar route when globalising—locales gradually disappear with the gentrification of old towns and districts; emotions are swayed by the highs and lows of the prevailing economic outlook; landscapes pertaining to our history, heritage and identity are actively being made and re-made. Human experiences and physical geographies are thus reduced to mere memories. These very tensions in our cosmopolitan environments form the foundation of these paintings by Ng, where thick layers of impasto and the shallowness of the surface play out on the picture plane.

These very tensions in our cosmopolitan environments form the foundation of these paintings by Ng, where thick layers of impasto and the shallowness of the surface play out on the picture plane. Serving as imagined future artefacts of global cities, these densely coated fragments hint at consumerist and capitalist practices such as the widespread use of plastics and the abstract imaging of human desires and demands through financial charts. Where sketchy marks, snarly lines and the vibrant palette joust for dominance on the canvases, some gestural marks gain obvious visibility while others become obscured, suggestive of the restless vibrations within the psychological landscape of our densely populated metropolises. Ng distils, through the translational medium of painting, the constitutive yet complex visual elements of our urban terrain.

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Cities that want to globalise seem to take the same route. At some level, locales disappear under the gentrification of districts, bright colourful plastics become a dominant aesthetic, and emotions are led by the highs and lows of financial charts. History, heritage, identity and landscape are actively being made and re-made. Human experiences and physical geographies become just memories. What is distinctive about these ‘post-country’ visual environments? How would painting reflect the collage nature and psychotic conditions of these big urban spots across the world? (Text by Ng Joon Kiat)

The works in Plastic Remains: want to distill, through the translational medium of painting, some constitutive visual elements of the global cities of today. To do so, they take on an imagination of themselves as the (future) artefacts from these cities. Their layered fragments hint at practices such as the widespread use of plastics and the abstract imaging of human desires and demands through financial charts. The tension between the layers of paint and the shallowness of its surface plays out on the picture plane. Bright thick paint, sketchy marks, snarly lines and broader areas of color joust for dominance. Some marks gain obvious upperhand in the field of visibility, others get obscured. The visual tanglings suggest the restless vibrations of psychological life in the concentrated sites of human population and wealth. (Text by Isabelle Ching)