Sierra’s Whiskey
2018
Acrylic on watercolor paper, compressed foam, Asphaltum lacquer and resin.
114.0 x 55.0 x 5.5 cm
21.0 x 20.8 x 1.5 cm
Unique

November’s Echo I
2018
Acrylic on watercolor paper, compressed foam, Asphaltum lacquer and resin.
66.5 x 128.0 x 6.0 cm
16.0 x 22.0 x 1.5 cm
Unique

Sierra’s Whiskey and November's Echo I continue Melissa Tan’s exploration of the material construction of Singapore in relation to its continuous urban development and redevelopment. The two works derive from the series ‘Back to where we’ve never been’, whose title suggests a place unknown, yet familiar, and considers Singapore’s chronic renovative efforts as offering a sense of reverse disorientation.

The titles of the works adopt the NATO phonetic alphabet system; Sierra’s Whiskey and November’s Echo I stand for the South-West and North-East sections of Singapore respectively, and the overlap of SW (‘Sierra's Whiskey') and NE (‘November’s Echo I’), would serve to create an outline of the island. In adopting this system as a naming device, Tan gracefully inserts a manner of coding into her work and in doing so creates a mirror unto the encoded and palimpsestic structure of Singapore’s acronymic nature, and its incessant yearn for construction, reconstruction and renovation.

Melissa Tan (b. 1989, Singapore) is a visual artist based in Singapore and received her BA (Fine Arts) from Lasalle College of the Arts in 2011. Her works are based on nature, themes of transience and beauty of the ephemeral. Her recent projects revolve around landscapes and the process of formation. Interested in geography and textures of rocks, she explores to translate the visual language through different mediums. Employing processes such as paper cutting, painting and silk-screen techniques, she is interested in materiality and how the medium supports the work. Though trained as a painter, she also works with video, sound and objects.