Curated by Savita Apte, Grayscale! highlights the working practices of four disparate artists living and working in South East Asia (Singapore, Indonesia): Yanyun Chen, Bestrizal Besta, Madhvi Subrahmanian and Fiona Seow. The exhibition deliberately foregrounds the collaborative and cross-disciplinary conversations between the artists to reveal an underlying series of intellectually provocative micro-narratives, even as it engages with the larger questions of materiality and the act of mark-making.
Seen against the backdrop of the pandemic, during which these works were conceived, visualised and made, the works naturally allude with our moment of enforced isolation, quiet introspection and heightened emotion that is offered as new possibilities in creativity in an attempt to apprehend and negotiate the enormity of this unique historical event.