Alvin Ong
Ong engages the world from various vantage points, the experience of navigating life between Singapore and London deeply informs his practice. His technique is characterised by rapid, large and impulsive brushstrokes in a palette of yellow ochre, cerulean, cobalt tones, prussian blues and alizarin crimson.
The artist’s primary interest lies in conveying the wide spectrum of thoughts, dreams and emotions endured by the human body. Elongated expressive figures inhabit his compositions, connected across time and space by sweeping dynamic layers of paint. He explores the ambivalent ‘inside out’ and ‘upside out’ sentiment, of being at once here and nowhere, a sentiment amplified by the recent pandemic which propagated the stigmatization of contact and created new concepts of distance.
Ong combines his distinct visual language with art history references from Old Masters to contemporary art. He subsumes the language of others from Tintoretto’s and El Greco’s expressive use of light, Cubists’ manipulation of perspectives, to his contemporaries such as Nicole Eisenman and Salman Toor who explore the ambiguous complexities around identity and sexuality.
— Kami Gahiga
BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1988 in Singapore
Lives and works in Singapore and London, UK
Solo and two person Exhibitions
2023
rodolphe janssen, Brussels, Belgium
2022
Antidote, Eton College, Berkshire, UK
Private Pleasures, BANK Gallery, Shanghai, China
Binge Watch, Yavuz Gallery, Singapore
2021
In My Head, Yavuz Gallery, The Armory Show, New York, NY USA
2020
Night shift, Mine Project, Hong Kong, China
Long distance, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2019
Supper Club, Yavuz Gallery, Singapore
2016
We will meet, Chan Hampe Galleries, Singapore
2006
The hours, Jendela, Esplanade, Singapore
Group Exhibitions
2022
In Momentum, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London
2021
Holding Hands, Union Gallery, London, UK
2020
The Possibility of an Island, A3, Cromwell Place, London, UK
Yeap Lam Yeang Collection, The Private Museum, Singapore
Closer than they appear, Yavuz Gallery, Singapore
The foot beneath the flower, NTU ADM Gallery, Singapore
Closer than they appear, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Opening exhibition, Coda Culture, Singapore
2019
Points of Articulation, Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Summer group show, Daniel Benjamin Gallery, London, UK
London Original Print Fair, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
Raw Forms, Coda Culture, Singapore
Deviations, 59 Hackney Road, London, UK
2018
BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
Thumbnails, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2017
Bilateral Bonds, Taksu Gallery, Singapore
Dimensions of Time, Crypt Gallery, London, UK
WIP Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK
And then..., NN Contemporary Art, Northampton 2015 Passages, UOB Art Gallery, Singapore
2015
Passages, UOB Art Gallery, Singapore
Common Ground, Shophouse 5, Singapore
Great Peranakans, The Peranakan Museum, Singapore
Fresh Takes, Chan Hampe Galleries, Singapore
2013
Creation, SJI Art Alumni Show, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2010
Altering Alvar Aalto, Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore
2007
AEP Biennial Arts, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore
The Best of UOB: 1982-2007, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Awards and residencies
2022
Artist-in-residence, Eton College, UK
Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Shortlist, Hong Kong, China
2019
Ingram Prize, UK
2018
Chadwell Award, UK
2017
Griffin Art Prize, Longlist, UK
HIX Art Award, Finalist, UK
Royal Drawing School Residency, Dumfries House, Scotland
2016
Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, Canada
Red Mansion Art Prize, Shortlist, UK
2005
United Overseas Bank Painting of the Year Award, Singapore
Collections
UOB Art Collection, Singapore
Peranakan Museum, Singapore
Ilham Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
X Museum, Beijing, China
Fosun Foundation, Shanghai, China
Ingram Collection,London, UK
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Foundation Medianoche, Spain