About this Event
In conjunction with The Hours, Recent Ink Works by Zhuang Shengtao and as a prelude to the exhibition, Afterhours is a special reading event that kicks off the inaugural session of iGather 雅集, a new and exciting series bringing together artists, writers, creatives, and thinkers for fruitful exchanges of ideas.
Afterhours presents the artist Zhuang Shengtao, and three esteemed poets and writers, Clara Chow, Daryl Lim Wei Jie and Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, who contemplate the delicacy of living from dawn to dusk, and on an existential level, from the past to the present and finally to the future.
The session is in English.
The speakers:
Clara Chow
A former journalist, Clara Chow 赵燕芬 been shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize for her fiction, non-fiction and poetry. As the one-woman show behind Hermit Press, she has put out story collections such as Tales from the K-Pop, and the experimental prose chapbook There is No Why, Only. She was last sighted behind the Great Firewall of China.
Daryl Lim Wei Jie
Daryl Lim Wei Jie 林伟杰 is a poet, editor and translator from Singapore. He is the author of Anything but Human, a finalist for the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize. He won the Young Artist Award in 2023, Singapore’s highest award for young art practitioners. www.darylwjlim.com
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is the author of The Experiment of the Tropics, finalist of the Lambda Literary Awards and on the longlist for The Believer Book Awards. He holds MFAs from Washington University in St. Louis and from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He teaches at Yale-NUS College.
The artist:
Zhuang Shengtao
Born in Guangdong, China, Zhuang Shengtao 庄声涛 made his foray into the hallowed tradition of Chinese ink painting was through See Hiang To in 1964. He studied calligraphy and painting under See Hiang To’s tutelage and went on to deepen his knowledge in the Chinese classics with a Masters degree at the then Nanyang University. Years of training in the Chinese classics paved for Shengtao a steadfast erudition in the philosophy of Taoism and his paintings express the beauty and all-encompassing scope of this philosophy. He embarked on trips to Paris, New York and Seattle, allowing his paintings to evolve into a synthesis of the traditional and the avant-garde. His adherence to the Chinese literati concept remains striking in his ink expression even as he composes with rhythmic, abstract monochromatic colour elements. His ink paintings are essentially poetries of nature; rather than presenting formal properties of a landscape, his work distils the physical essence of nature into motion, rhythm and atmosphere.
The moderators:
Lim Chye Hong
Lim Chye Hong 林彩鳳 is an art historian by training, with many years of experience in the museum and heritage sector, including curatorial, programming, and leadership positions in Australia and Singapore. A specialist in Chinese art with sound knowledge of Australian and Contemporary Art, Chye Hong is also a visual artist with works in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
Yeow Kai Chai
Yeow Kai Chai 姚家才is a poet, fiction writer, and editor. He has three poetry collections: Secret Manta (2001); Pretend I’m Not Here (2006); and One to the Dark Tower Comes (2020), which was awarded the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize. He has worked as editor-in-chief, entertainment editor and music reviewer in the media for nearly three decades. He was the Festival Director of Singapore Writers Festival from 2015 to 2018.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
ipreciation, 50 Cuscaden Road, Singapore, Singapore
SGD 0.00