Jimmy Ong/ blog, etc.
2001-2005
Landscapes of Lunuganga
Having to wait out the process of a greencard outside the US, around the Millenium, the artist made numerous trips to Sri Lanka and started to make landscape drawings of the gardens of the late architect Geoffrey Bawa. The old unpruned trees of Sri Lanka inspired the artist to consider re-creating scenes of Colonial South East Asia back in Singapore.
A catalog is produced by Plum Blossoms with essay by Peter Lee. The exhibition at Bawa's former office in Colombo was mostly collected by the late Elizabeth Muljorhardjo including a hardbound sketch book.
The artist made another set of drawings of rocks and water by the Lighthouse in Galle, Thiese were exhibited in Singapore at Studio 43, Chip Bee Loft; and in one private collection.
Private Collection
Private Collection
Private Collection
Private Collection
LoversRocks, Kuala Lumpur 2001
A joint exhibition in Kuala Lumpur by Taksu Gallery and Plum Blossoms opened by the late Tun Sri Rosalind Foo who is also an artist and a friend. An accompanying catalog is produced by Plum Blossoms with essay by Peter Lee.
This body of works comprises mostly of self portraits of the artist as a woman in a pull-push tussle with a dualistic self. The artist examines gender negotiation depicted in a hetronormative relationship.
Portable Prayer, New York 2002
Plum Blossoms Gallery, Chelsea.
An installation work of an artist-fabricated tent in the form of a 'hulu" that double as a private shrine for the audience to input a prayer for the deceased via a laptop. The "prayer" or message is encrypted in different "religious font" and printed as a "keepsake". The prayer is also added into a live- web scrolling page and "emancipated" in real time by a Buddhist monk after 49 days.
The artist explores performance-installation within spiritual-material and private-public realms.
Night Still Life
A parallel exhibition to Portable Prayer in NYC 2002. A single wall of still life made in artificial light/ set up with cuttings from the artist's garden from the first Spring and summer after the September 11 tragedy.
This body of works retained as one suite in a private collection.