Discover the stories behind the works of the 4 Singaporean artists of LAH! Stories from the Neighbourhood: Aisha Rosli, Casey Tan, Faris Heizer and Shen Jiaqi, through an exclusive exhibition walkthrough with the artists.
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This programme is part of the transnational exhibition LAH! Stories from the Neighbourhood. Curated by Farah Wardani, featuring artists Prabu Perdana, Ruth Marbun, Iqi Qoror, and Dian Suci from Artsphere Gallery, alongside Aisha Rosli, Faris Heizer, Casey Tan, and Shen Jiaqi from Cuturi Gallery. Through diverse approaches to figuration and abstraction, these artists present deeply personal reflections on urban life, social conditions, and generational concerns.
Prabu Perdana and Shen Jiaqi offer poetic depictions of landscapes and agricultural spaces caught in flux, marked by urban isolation, industrial development, and rural transformation. Ruth Marbun employs collage and visual fragmentation to examine existential themes and transient states of being. While the works of Aisha Rosli, Faris Heizer, Casey Tan, Dian Suci and Iqi Qoror reflect the subjectivities and inner states of a generation navigating uncertainty, vulnerability, and selfhood. Their paintings echo the tensions of contemporary life, from societal performance to identity formation in the digital age, capturing a spectrum of emotional states, both personal and collective.
Framed as an artistic dialogue between “neighbours”, LAH! Stories from the Neighbourhood highlights both the shared sensibilities and distinct conditions that influence painting practices in Southeast Asia today. The exhibition title draws from the ubiquitous Southeast Asian expression “lah”. Its abundant use in everyday conversations—whether in Malay, Singlish, or Bahasa Indonesia—highlights its role as a linguistic bridge across communities. In this context, it also serves as an analogy for the contemporary painting medium itself: a unifying tie that binds all eight artists, a common tool that while employed in vastly different ways, suggests a shared familiarity and connectivity among these neighbours.
LAH! Stories from the Neighbourhood invites audiences to traverse the shared landscapes of Singapore and Indonesia, offering a lens into the collective consciousness of a region rich in history, diversity, and artistic innovation. This collaboration between Cuturi Gallery and Artsphere Gallery reaffirms both galleries’ commitment to fostering artistic dialogue between Southeast Asia’s creative communities.
LAH! Stories from the Neighbourhood will be on view at 61 Aliwal Street, S199937, from 24 May to 5 July 2025.
