Wong Shih Yaw’s faith in art

His religious beliefs may figure strongly in — and even be at the heart of — what he does, but Singaporean artist Wong Shih Yaw doesn’t consider his art to be of the evangelical sort.

“I don’t see it that way. I want to be a witness to God, but not necessarily ask people to believe,” said the 48-year-old. “And it’s not necessary to just paint Jesus Christ on a cross.”

Similarly, it’s not necessary to completely frame Wong as a “Christian artist” when viewing his retrospective at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). Comprising more than 60 drawings and paintings from the past two decades of his practice, the show, aptly titled Allegories, highlights Wong’s inclination towards storytelling. Divided not chronologically but, instead, by medium, theme or subject matter, the exhibition isn’t so much about tracing his artistic development through time as it is about seeing his different, and often concurrent, preoccupations alongside one another.

Among his bigger works, for instance, are two huge paintings that deal with SARS and dengue (the latter features a boxing match with mosquitoes) and, with these, you might discern nods to Maoist propaganda art or something akin to Robert Crumb’s illustrative style. Children with Wong’s trademark oversized heads also figure in many of his works. It’s a nod to his young daughter but, on the symbolic level, also suggests the idea of “child-like faith”, he said.

The symbolic imagery found in his paintings is mostly of a Christian nature, but there’s a certain universality and vagueness about much of it that you could just as easily read it as social commentary in a secular sense, too. A drawing, for example, of people digging their own graves, with telephones hanging from above, says as much about one’s daily toil as it does about one’s connection to a higher source (with phones as the literal line to heaven). The painting The Gifts, which features babies being parachuted down to the welcoming arms of people, is a celebration of the wonders of parenthood, but it could also be a commentary on Singapore’s population issues. Elements that seem surreal have a mainly symbolic function: Floating hands pushing or feeding babies are, in Wong’s eyes, God’s guiding hands.

Most interesting, perhaps, is his darker Story series, where Christian and personal recollections are combined with a steampunk aesthetic. For example, there’s a strange-looking machine that looks like it’s ejecting photographs (that Wong considers “bad memories”) even as it “chews” on biblical text. There’s another featuring a huge, worn-out mechanical elephant on which the artist rides, surrounded by seven men wearing sci-fi helmets, that’s both a nod to the Indian tale of the blind men and the elephant, as well as a confessional piece about people who judge him based on partial truths. And let’s not forget the unusual mecha robot incorporating the image of an eagle and a lion (both potent religious symbols) with Wong as a child inside, wearing a lamb-helmet (yet another religious symbol).

A NEW CALLING

Curiously enough, despite the already extensive timeframe of 20 years, Allegories misses out on one important chapter in Wong’s career: His days as one of the founding members of the seminal The Artists Village collective.

His involvement began as a 20-year-old NAFA student back in 1987, when, as a Singapore representative at an ASEAN Youth Painting Workshop here, he chose artist Tang Da Wu as a mentor. The following year, Tang invited him to join his new gathering at Lorong Gambas in Sembawang, where Wong would meet the likes of Vincent Leow and Amanda Heng. “It was a chicken farm and it was quite huge. I would cycle in and sometimes dogs would chase me,” he recalled.

At that time, Wong was also busy with National Service and would cycle from his camp in Clementi all the way to Sembawang, paint for an hour, then go back. So when the newspapers covered the art collective’s first group show in 1989, “I wasn’t in the photo because I was in the army,” he laughed.

Wong would eventually leave the group due to various reasons, including his growing interest in Christianity. He also took a break from painting. “In 1991, I decided I didn’t want to become an artist. I didn’t like the unstable life,” he recalled.

Eventually, Wong would get his groove back, with a solo exhibition at The Substation in 1996. Since 2004, he has been regularly holding solo shows at Utterly Art, including his 11th last year. From being at the start of one of Singapore’s most influential art groups to his current, ongoing journey as an artist deeply bound to his faith, Wong’s journey has been an unusual one.

NAFA’s Bridget Tracy Tan, director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Arts and Art Galleries, said Wong uses his art as a foil for his own experiences. “They are as tried, as complex, as fantastical and sometimes humorous, as joyful, as socially concerned and as free or as restrained as he has felt.”

In Wong’s own words: “It has always been about telling stories.”

Allegories runs until March 8, 11am to 7pm, at NAFA Galleries 1 & 2, NAFA Campus 1, 80 Bencoolen St. Free admission. Closed on public holidays.