Unseen Art Workshops is an experimental lab where we introduce diverse art forms and expressions to different groups of people to encourage exchanges of ideas through art-making, while discovering new knowledge and methods for accessibility.
This 2018 project brings forth a series of hands-on workshops led by professional artists focusing on the theme of self-identity for visually impaired participants from 3 organisations: Guide Dog Association, Singapore Association for the Visually Handicapped (SAVH) and Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School. The artists include sculptor Victor Tan, visual artists Alecia Neo and Mintio and painter Kok Choon Choo and theatre director and educator Jeffrey Tan.
Artworks produced from the workshops will be presented at Bedok Library from 3-16 Dec 2018.
PLASTER OF PARIS WORKS
Title: Stranger in the Mirror (2018)
Are we sometimes a stranger to ourselves? How well do we know ourselves?
Sculptor Victor Tan invites his participants to explore positive and negative space with a simple material, Plaster of Paris, to create facial mask of themselves. The vast majority of Victor’s earliest sculpture works have been centered on the human figure, some express a language or voice which Victor uses to work through his anxieties and traumas. In his workshop, he invites his participants to express their own unique voice via material, which he sees as a deeply personal and fundamental value as a human being.
The exhibit of the participants artworks are also accompanied by their voices describing their artworks and their personal reflections about creating.
COLLABORATING ARTIST
VICTOR TAN WEE TAR - SCULPTOR
Victor Tan ’s sculptures are characterized by the sole use of wire. Coupled with his unique techniques, he investigates existential ideas about humanity, the isolation of the human emotions in the moment, and through the passage of time and life. Exploring the world of three dimensional art, participants will be introduced to various materials with Victor to create an artwork of their own.
The vast majority of Victor’s sculptures have been centered on the human figure, with rare works of fishes, birds, horses etc. His earliest pieces seemed to express a language or voice which Victor uses to work through his anxieties and traumas. Or perhaps a therapy even to release his inner fears and thoughts, through a language that words cannot express. Creating sculpture at this point in his existence is about healing, about seeking happiness, about contemplation, about finding meanings in life.
Victor has completed work for numerous prestigious commissions including his first commission in 1998, a dramatic pageant of five larger than life human figures representing the fingers of a hand making the ‘OK’ sign. In the same year, he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from RMIT. His works are now held in many corporate and private collections in US, The Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico and Singapore.
