Dawn Ng
‘Into Air’
Curated by Jenn Ellis
Presented by Sullivan+Strumpf
Exhibition July 7 – 23, 2022. Saint Cyprian’s Church, Glentworth St, London NW1 6AX
Dawn Ng, Into Air, 2023. Photography James Retief
“Viscerally emotive, Dg’s artworks evoke time’s idiosyncratic and pluralistic nature, how it varies between person, location, experience and objecthood.” – Jenn Ellis
Time – how it flows, echoes, slips, is the subject of Dawn Ng’s (b. 1982, Singapore) monumental first solo show in London, located in the living heritage church St Cyprian’s, Marylebone. Curated by Jenn Ellis and presented by Sullivan+Strumpf, ‘Into Air’ is an ambitious assemblage of photographic, painting, installation and video work set in harmonious dialogue with the church’s minimalist neo gothic interior. With thoughtful detail to space and context, each work is apprehended as an individual encounter: how it stands, loiters, hangs, gravitates. From tonality to form, material to mood, Dawn Ng prompts us to reflect on the properties of cyclical passing, how beyond numerical chronology it’s a matter of feeling and moment-making.
Dawn Ng, Into Air, 2022. Photography by James Retief
A first encounter is a photographic work, part of Dawn Ng’s ‘Clock’ series. Larger than human height and placed within a bespoke wooden structure created in collaboration with EBBA Architects, which echoes the language of church pews, the work presents a block of pigmented ice. Layered in luscious tones, this ephemeral object presents the source of the ‘Into Air’ series that takes as a point of departure monolithic fragments of frozen water, fastidiously coloured with topographical nuance. Created in Dawn Ng’s native Singapore, these invariably melt, the colours bleeding into a melange of tincture. Filmed as they fracture, these works form the subjects of Dawn Ng’s time lapse films, one of which is presented in the exhibition. They’re also the source of the ‘Ash’ paintings, the melted pigment receiving a form of resurrection through their incarnation as painterly formulae.
Dawn Ng, Into Air, 2022. Photography by James Retief
As such the works are tied, each sensitively a part of Dawn Ng’s cyclical constellation that favours creation, degradation, dereliction and birth. Viscerally emotive, they evoke time’s idiosyncratic and pluralistic nature, how it varies between person, location, experience and objecthood. ‘Into Air’ ultimately sings in St Cyprian’s, imbuing its walls and historicity with an ephemeral moment, akin to a breath, in which one feels, sees, looks and remembers.
Text by Jenn Ellis
Dawn Ng, Into Air, 2022. Photography by James Retief
Dawn Ng, Into Air, 2022. Photography by James Retief
Dawn Ng is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, who has worked across a breadth of mediums, motifs, and scale, including sculpture, photography, light, film, collage, painting and large scale installations. Her practice deals with time, memory and the ephemeral. Often characterized by lyricism and a nuanced use of colour, her work has been acquired by the Singapore Art Museum, and exhibited at the Musee d’art contemporain de Lyon, the Jeju Biennale (2017), and the Lille3000 art festival, France. Solo exhibitions include Into Air, St Cyprian’s Church, London (2022), Monument Momento, Sullivan & Strumpf, Singapore (2020), A Thing of Beauty, Art Paris Art Fair (2015) and Sixteen, Art Basel Hong Kong (2013). Ng has been commissioned by the Hermes Foundation (2016), ArtScience Museum (2019), Asian Civilisations Museum (2020) and most recently by the National Gallery Singapore (2023).
Sullivan+Strumpf is a leading contemporary art gallery with spaces in Sydney and Melbourne, and itinerant programming in Singapore and London. Founded in 2005 by co-directors Ursula Sullivan and Joanna Strumpf, the gallery is committed to presenting a dynamic exhibition program, representing over 40 engaging and culturally significant artists and estates from across the Asia-Pacific. With unwavering dedication to a progressive and compelling schedule of over 30 exhibitions annually, Sullivan+Strumpf has helped foster the careers of some of the most prominent contemporary artists working in Australia, Southeast Asia and beyond. As a complement to the diverse and innovative exhibition program, the gallery publishes a bi-monthly magazine; hosts public talks and participatory workshops; and partakes in key national and international art fairs. Regularly consulting to major public and private museums, Sullivan+Strumpf acts in an advisory capacity to public and private collections internationally.