Dawn Ng

Dawn Ng (b. 1982) studied at Georgetown University in the US, graduated magna cum laude from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, and has since built a unique world of art, criss-crossing diverse media including sculpture, photography, video, painting and large-scale installation. Currently based in Singapore, Ng rapidly gained fame through her projects commissioned by the Asian Civilizations Museum and the Hermes Foundation Singapore Gallery. Ng focuses on metaphysical themes with transient properties such as memory and time, and captures the emotions that occur in a single moment. In so doing, she understands the essence of time not as something linear that can be calculated in numbers, but as something flexible and emotional, thus she completes her work by adding shape and color to this fluid time. For example, in the “INTO AIR” series, Ng visualizes the flow of time by using ice as subject matter, as it transforms from solid to liquid, and from liquid to gas. She created an ice sculpture from acrylic paint, dye and ink, which she froze over three weeks; filmed the melting of the sculpture with time-lapse video; and had the melted liquid soak into paper. Through this three-stage process, she conveys the flowing time and the story dissolved in that time. Thus Ng’s work presents not the indifferently flowing time of Chronos, but a special and meaningful time of Kairos, thereby offering spectators a new sense of the time given to us.