Yanyun Chen, Estelle Tcha, Nandita Mukand, Franziska Fennert

Installation View 1

The Columns Gallery Singapore warmly presents Evolving Expressions, featuring Nandita Mukand, Yanyun Chen, Franziska Fennert and Estelle Tcha. The exhibition touches on the collective representation of the human spirit that transcends beyond the meanings of expressions. From the cave paintings of our ancestors to the digital art of today, artistic expression has continuously manifested within the flux of human experience. However, we are sometimes so overwhelmed by our own lives that we often neglect the invisible struggles that still stifle society. Following the trajectories of these artists, we recollect virtues that pave way for our evolution while questioning the truths of beauty and perception.

Installation View 2

Nandita Mukand (b. 1975, India, lives and works in Singapore)

Nandita Mukand and her artistic journey started from her birthplace in India, where its abundant flora and fauna provides self-introspection and resilience. Raised in a small town, she cultivated the art of needlework, embroidery, and knitting, despite societal taboos that mitigated women’s career in the arts.

In 2008, Mukand made a life-changing decision to leave her corporate career to seek empowerment in art. It sprouted a new beginning for her in understanding the austere relationship between nature and humanity. She is enamoured by the evolution of nature, where growth, decay, and adaptation takes place. Her art touches the heart and soul as she uses medical gauze as a canvas to allude on healing and perseverance of women in the face of adversities.

Coming from a multicultural background, Mukand incorporates elements like sacred thread knots from Hindu and Muslim traditions, and nails symbolising the passion of Christ. Her work reacts to the universal experiences of pain, hope, and faith, reminding us of the enduring human spirit.

Installation View 3

Yanyun Chen (b. 1986, Singapore, lives and works in Boston, US)

Yanyun Chen remoulds the perspectives of aesthetics, culture, and technology on the human body. Her work disentangles the complexities of embodiment, heritage, and legacies, both real and imagined. With a focus on human and botanical forms, she bifurcates into two distinct but interrelated paths: the evolution of bodies and the examination of constructs.

Under the skin, Chen cuts deep into cultural wounds, dowry traditions, hereditary scars, and the philosophy of nudities. She investigates stories as a metaphorical skin that individuals wear, as well as the intergenerational pain that shapes our identities. On the other path, she questions the act of representing and memorialising artifice in contrast to the experience of witnessing the withering and death of what exists both outside and within ourselves.

Chen challenges us to confront the layers of meaning, history, and existence that are etched onto our bodies and embedded in our constructed realities.

Installation View 4

Franziska Fennert (b. 1984, Germany, lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

Franziska Fennert has been living in Indonesia since 2013. Her stay in Indonesia enabled her to reflect on a value system other than capitalism that could support the lives of all living forms in a respectful manner. With a needle and thread, she weaves together the evolution of society to understand human behaviours, economic systems, and social structures within a global context.

Participating in the Nature Art Residency in Japan and joining the Indonesian Upcycle Forum shifted her perspective towards an emancipated environment as a vital component of a progressive social system. Fennert’s exploration of circular economy and Javanese spirituality offers an alternative to capitalism’s linear approach.

Notably, Fennert initiated the construction of Monumen Antroposen, a temple made of plastic scraps, near a garbage dump in Yogyakarta. Her project galvanises on transforming global society into a circular economy that is socially and ecologically sustainable, honouring ancestral ties to places and countries. Fennert’s journey, from her graduate studies to her role as the chair of German-Asian association cover E.V., reflects her commitment to bridging cultures and inventing new avenues for artistic expression and societal progress.

Installation View 5

Estelle Tcha (b. 1993, Korea, lives and works in Seoul, South Korea)

Estelle Tcha’s multicultural upbringing and nature-empathic instincts converge in her intuitive yet cultivated expositions. Her artistic evolution revolves around the concept of cyclicality, rooted in eastern philosophical thought, shaping her views on value and connectivity in the human experience. Tcha refines her ideas through the evolution of energy, where energy deviates between flowing movements and emptiness reimagining new pathways.

Moon Dance, Oasis (2023) draws upon the human desire to connect, celebrate, hope and desire, the human closeness that was sought for during the 2019 pandemic. It is an extended continuum from Tcha’s previous Cyclicality series, where horse figures carry the metaphors of human energy and soul. Here, each figure comes together in harmonious motion, exuding a sense of freedom and individuality while remaining part of the collective whole-a testament to the power of connectivity within shared experience. In the fluid interchange of movements that transition into pure tranquillity, we discover the tabula rasa of life, death and revival.

Starting from a blank slate, Evolving Expressions grows, and blossoms into a universal message of hope and veneration. It is through our expressive nature that illuminates our hearts and minds, exceeding beyond the tangible reality. Going through the same journey, we are like stones across a river, each a step in the path of understanding, connected by the ebbs and flows of consciousness.

The Columns Gallery
22 Lock Road, Gillman Barracks #01-35 Singapore 108939
+65 9030 7647

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