Dawn Ng, September, 2025. Acrylic paint, dye, ink and sand on wood, 1230 x 2432 x 50 mm.

Sullivan + Strumpf is proud to present ‘The Earth Laughs in Flowers’, a newly produced body of work by Singaporean visual artist Dawn Ng.

‘The Earth Laughs in Flowers’ is an ode to visual perspectives of the accumulated quotidianThe images we consume when walking through the streets, the newspaper headlines that flicker, that internet scroll, time with friends, the hint of a texture that catches our eye or an image sent by a loved one. In their infinite variety, there are two constants to these inputs: the month of the year, and oneself, the vessel of perception. Articulating this observational and at times mundane data, and distilling them, is Dawn Ng, who has created a visually abundant diaristic response through twelve paintings, one pertaining to each month. Setting out on a Herculean task, Ng expresses in a confluence of colour the myriad of synaptic connections we experience. Set in Singapore’s Repertory Theatre, this solo show sets the stage for encounters with Ng’s inner mind, and the tributaries of our own subconscious. 

The first time I encountered Dawn Ng’s oeuvre was during lockdown. Our lives, as we’d known them, had globally changed. A universal haltering, or slowing down. In this moment of suspension, Ng reflected on how time speeds up when you’re having fun, slows down when you’re bored: she unravelled the intrinsic qualities to time as if it were a being, charged with emotion rather than simply numerology. Through this reflection stemmed a now near-decade-long investigation around the medium of ice. The most ephemeral material in Ng’s native Singapore, ice is charged with also references to childhood – that lolly, or cubes in a drink. In a land of eternal summer, its variable existence is noted, and disappearance quickly acknowledged. In a sense, it’s a foil for the nation’s spirit of renewal, in particular the swift replacement of older buildings, from homes to schools. 

When gazing at the works in this exhibition there is an intrinsically cosmic quality, akin to casting our eyes on nebulae. As if collected from the Hubble telescope, the paintings harbour clusters, ranging in tonality from trails of sage to hints of pastel orange. Following from Ng’s previous series, ‘Into Air’, the paintings are created, as a starting point, by assiduously layering blocks of frozen pigments: watercolours, acrylics, dyes. For the ‘Earth Laughs in Flowers’, however, there are several key differences. In a first instance, Ng introduces sediment of different kinds, freezing materials such as grit and sand amongst the layers. In a second instance, instead of having the bricks melt and capturing the process as in her ‘Clocks’ series, Ng breaks them on the wooden boards, forming masses. Through a combination of the artist’s hand and ice’s inevitable fusion, the blocks melt, forming textured pools of agglomerated colour. Ng guides these, balancing formative chance with artistic intention. The result is one where the pools connect, and the in-between space is filled; in ‘January’ (2025), for example, a near-black sea heightens our celestial feel, connecting the islands of colour, drawing parallels with dark matter: that which interconnects, in our universe, star-forming pillars of gas and dust. 

In this conceptual and procedural approach, Ng aligns herself with the world of process-driven abstract painters; ones for whom value is in the gesture, rather than the descriptive output. Even in the creation of negative space in these paintings, which brings Ng’s works into the realm of non-representational and biomorphic figuration, we can draw an analogy with Jackson Pollock, in particular his ‘Cut Out’ series. Crucially, for Ng, and further artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, emphasis is on fluidity and spontaneity: describing and articulating landscapes or biological life without directly representing them. One could say that in Ng’s affinity with the natural world, she treads in the field of Land Art, where natural material is used in the creation of the ‘canvas’, from rocks to soil and plants. In effect, each painting has the intrinsic qualities of this movement, including a focus on process and use of natural materials. And while each painting is not site-specific, the ‘The Earth Laughs in Flowers’, as an exhibition, is. As a show and an installation, it responds to a particular site – that of an active theatre – and through lighting and display enters the realm of experience and encounter.  

Ultimately, Ng’s work acts as a lyrical portal or thread between different worlds: a connector. Between deep historical times and our very present; our Earth and the wider celestial Cosmos; the myriad of information and inputs one might witness or experience on a given month; our physical presence to digital footprints; the realms of two major twentieth century art movements. It connects our minds and our instincts, the bodily and the emotive. In a world where the constant is change and movement, ‘The Earth Laughs in Flowers’ leans into the temporal spectrum of shifts and highlights how we all have something that’s idiosyncratically ours: our time, how we use, and appreciate it.

Words by Jenn Ellis