INSTALLATION
silent in the petrifying silence
29 October — 14 November 2018
3:00 — 6:00pm
RELATED EVENTS
Opening reception
silent in the petrifying silence
with Ashidiq Ghazali
29 October — 14 November 2018
3:00 — 6:00pm
RELATED EVENTS
Opening reception
Sat 28 October, 3:00 — 6:00pm
Conversations at the Bar
Sat 29 October, 8:00 — 9:30pm
Click here for more event photos ︎
about the installation
Telok Ayer Arts Club is stoked to be presenting the London-based Ashidiq Ghazali, who returns to his home ground for his debut solo exhibition—making this his first introduction as a painter.
Titled silent in the petrifying silence, the exhibition comprises stark hard-edged geometric paintings of acrylic on canvas. These paintings of his seem on the surface to be austere compositional studies on the play of bold colours, modular rectangular shapes and intrusive grid lines. Yet these individual elements come together to balance precariously and harmonise all in quietude. The title of the exhibition captures this wrought tension that Ashidiq has deftly breathed with reticent control into his canvas.
about the artist
The London-based, Ashidiq Ghazali, autodidact shed his life as an advertising creative director to pursue art-making entirely in April 2018. Having recently set up a studio just 15 minutes away from his apartment, and ever the consummate painter, Ashidiq escapes into the solitary meditative ritual of applying thin layers of translucent paint on his canvas, with a brush, everyday of the week. With each thin layer taking a day to dry, and a single colour block built on 6 to 8 layers, the process is methodical and repetitive. The seriality of geometric forms reveals within the painter a system of compulsion and obsession. In the enclosure of his studio, Ashidiq wrestles with his canvas, through finicky exactitude and unwavering precision, to establish an illusory order.
This artistic compulsion has been present and active throughout Ashidiq’s life. He was heavily involved in music, first, in the early 90s as one half of Singapore's first mainstream hip hop group Construction Sight, and in the late 90s in the influential drum and bass DJ collective Guerilla. During this temporary stay in Singapore, Ashidiq will also be spinning on Kelab Malam, 26 October. He will also be in a panel with other creatives involved in the music scene to discuss not only Singapore’s underground music history, but also the act of creative making in music and other fields.
