Jimmy Ong | 3.5/5

SINGAPORE — Prominent in the contemporary art scene in Singapore, Jimmy Ong is well-known for his charcoal drawings on paper, now on show at FOST Gallery in his first solo exhibition here since 2010. The self-titled show features his most recent still life series, Nassim Hill Revisited — the first time he has shown his still lifes in 10 years. Alongside previously seen series such as Ancestors On The Beach and Beyond LKY, the appropriately self-titled exhibition constitutes a revealing and expansive overview of his body of work.

The phrase “body of work” is strikingly appropriate, given that the human body is particularly significant over the span of Jimmy Ong’s oeuvre. Through the body, Ong’s practice has seen him exploring human nature, with emphasis given to the prickly issue of gender, and the complex, faceted roles which we spin around it.

Ong’s concern with gender, symbolism and the body extends throughout the figurative works on display, in which androgynously muscular bodies — suggesting perhaps Michelangelo’s depictions of women — enact all manner of tableaux and allegorical relationships. They range from Yu Sisters Cross The Mountain — in which three women strike a pose which recalls depictions of the three graces in Western art — to works like Heart (Daughters) and Heart (Sons), which might suggest expanded definitions of family.

At every turn, the figures drawn by Ong display an array of dualities, contradictions and ambiguities, with the most apparent of these being a turn to androgyny. One’s also likely to be caught off-guard by the repeated, ambiguously gendered faces, caught as they are in — for the most part — fleeting moments of serene, indifferent timelessness, which one might associate with religious images. His technique also deploys an analogous sort of contrast and contradiction, marrying brusquely vigorous lines with reservedly delicate suggestions of line; likewise, his shading and contouring span a wide range of approaches, gifting his figures with a gracefully determined sense of motion.

Perhaps the most provocative is Beyond LKY, first seen in Singapore Survey 2010: Beyond LKY, in which curator and gallerist Valentine Willie challenged a group of artists to contemplate a future without the long-serving politician. Posing questions on the role of gender (and specific gender roles) in myth-making, Ong’s treatment of the subject goes beyond simple political satire.

Rendered in this same fashion are his still lifes, which seem at first to bear little relation to his enigmatic figures — a banana doesn’t have much in common with the human body, except perhaps in off-colour jokes. It bears remembering, though, that however divorced the forms of plants may be from our own — facilitating our many uses of them, such as food and decoration — analogies of form and function can be found, informing a rich landscape of symbolism.

By drawing correspondences between the human world and that of plants, what was once thoughtlessly overlooked becomes charged with sensuous significance, just as the human form contains the potential for limitless depth, plumbed here in part by Jimmy Ong. Bruce Quek

Jimmy Ong’s exhibition runs until Aug 31, 11am to 7pm, FOST Gallery, Gillman Barracks, #01-02. Free admission. Mondays and public holidays by appointment.