Sunday, 19 February 2012

SPORE Art Salon : FEBRULOUS TWENTY-TWELVE!

Happy Leap Year! Happy Valentine's Day! and... Happy salonistas celebrating the 15th edition in February this month!!!

We are stoked to present you the 15th edition of the SPORE!Art!Salon! This month we're (especially) grateful and thankful to everyone of you who have been supporting the salon editions, whether by coming out to join us on event nights, being on stage, or by getting kick-ass work up on the projector screens, and walls of The Loft, here's a shout out to those at ECHOLoft... and at our new home, BluJaz Cafe, all of whom have been very supportive of the visual/performing items that our artists had wanted to share with everyone else. Lots of loooove for each and every one of you!

This month will see us putting poetry and spoken word performances on stage, a visiting visual artist who'll show you a portrait made in film (!), plus, get ready to topple head over heels for an extremely talented young musician who will bring you heart-felt music and song. Not forgetting... sharpen those pencils and fill up your palettes for life drawing with a model so enthusiastic to pose for all!

Also, we have a very special guest feature... our long-time salon regular, collaborator, host, musician,... the absolute sparkle of every night and great friend who needs no introduction... JOHNNY KIM! He will take the stage for the very last time during his stay here in good ol' Singapore so be sure not to miss this one! It's going to be a wonderful evening out, and we cannot wait to getting around to this... see you all then!



WHERE: BluJaz Cafe (12 Bali Lane)
WHEN: Tuesday 28 February 2012, 7:30PM
FB Event Page : https://www.facebook.com/events/333067136736287/

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SPORE Art Salon is a non-profit initiative created for visual artists to meet, mingle, inspire, and share with performing artists. During the event, we alternate between drawing sessions with live models, and performances from musicians, contortionists, poets, dancers, actors and more. We also feature works of, and demonstrations by visual artists, individually or collaboratively.

For those who are new to the art salon, our event is modeled after world famous Giles Larrain's Art Salon in NYC, with a distinctly Singaporean twist and flavour!

There is a minimum donation of $7/person at the door, and proceeds will benefit our featured artists. The bar and kitchen will be open, so come have some drinks and dinner, meet, mingle and inspire with fellow creatives of various disciplines. Guests are encouraged to participate in the life drawing sessions in between performances, so, bring your sketch materials along!

For information on our archived editions, please visit
www.sporeartsalon.blogspot.com

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Pink Walls Oil on Gesso, by Gavin Maughfling
FEATURED VISUAL ARTIST:

GAVIN MAUGHFLING
http://www.gavinmaughfling.co.uk

Gavin will be showing images of some of the paintings he has been making since January in Singapore, and talking about some of the ideas he is exploring while working here. He will also be introducing a short 5-minute film entitled ‘Sam’, which was first shown at the Frisk Salon event ‘Manual’ in London in May 2011.

A British artist based in London, Gavin is currently visiting Singapore on a three-month sabbatical, during which he is working in a studio in Paya Lebar, producing a series of paintings based on abstractions of Singapore HDB estates, as well as a running a drawing course at the Goodman Arts Centre.

Gavin was trained at the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford, and on the Fine Art Masters Programme at the University of East London. He has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally, including solo and group shows at The Lounge Gallery (London), CAP Projects (London, jointly curated with Nicky Hodge), Prenelle Gallery (London), Jill George Gallery, London, ICA (London), the Mostyn Gallery (Lllandudno), Kelvingrove Gallery (Glasgow), Galerie Van Den Planken (Antwerp), Elzenveld Foundation (Antwerp, with the British Council), Art Paris (Paris) and the Holland Art Fair (The Hague).

He has held residencies at the British Embassy, Luxembourg and at the University of Hertfordshire. His work is held in numerous collections and is represented in the Government Art Collection in the United Kingdom.

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FEATURED PERFORMANCE ARTISTS:


DON SHIAU (host)



Nina Chabra
NINA CHABRA (model)
http://vimeo.com/31288624
Do various things for my life.
I try to live restful throughout.
With the occasional conversation with a tree.











RIO CHAVARRO (performer)

Rio Chavarro
Rio Chavarro aka "El RIO de MIAMI" was brought to Singapore on the wings of fate (actually in 3 different air planes) a little over a year ago to play "Charlie Chaplin" (the one greatest loving inspiration of his art) for Universal Studios in Sentosa and has lovingly supported the SPORE Art Salon since its early days at the ECHOLoft.
He is a latino-Miamian bilingually unapologetic poet, actor, comedian, story-teller, writer/director. Rio has been performing his poetry and one person shows in bars, festivals & on the streets for the past 12 years in cities all over the US including Miami, NYC, L.A. In South America, he's toured his shows through Chile, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, & Brazil. In Central America through Mexico, Costa Rica, & Panama. In Europe: Scotland's famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Spain, France, & Italy.
Kicked out of both Julliard Conservatory for being outspoken and then the New World School of the Arts for his outstanding directorial abilities, he has continued to act, direct, write poetry, plays, pilots, and is currently working on finishing a novel, a TV series, and his first attempt ever at writing a children's book.
He will be reading selected pieces of his work including a few written here in SG... he will tickle and tantalize the audience with his mixture of thoughtful story-telling, child-like witty comedy, & ADDHD poetry to then polish it all off with a song at the end.


Jay Bernard
 JAY BERNARD (poet)
http://brrnrrd.wordpress.com/
Jay Bernard is currently the writer-in-residence at NUS University Scholars Program and The Arts House. She is from London and has performed her work all over the UK, including Shakespeare's Globe, The Royal Opera House and The Southbank Centre. Her first pamphlet, Your Sign Is Cuckoo, Girl was selected as PBS pamphlet choice in 2008, and she is currently working on another. She blogs at brrnrrd.wordpress.com, and you can follow her @Brrnrrd on twitter.




Andrea Vazquez

ANDREA VAZQUEZ (singer/song writer)
http://www.youtube.com/user/vazqu7054
Andrea Vazquez is a sixteen-year-old singer/songwriter.

She is currently in high school and taking music as a subject. She has been interested in music ever since she was a little girl, and has always loved being on stage performing. She began composing her own songs when she was just 12 years and has more than 50 songs to date. She gets her inspiration from her own experiences, and each song talks about a specific event in her life, She looks up to singers like Sara Bareilles and bands like Maroon5. She is self taught in guitarist and piano player and loves to play both instruments. She regularly takes part in school music shows and loves performing in open mikes around Singapore. When she graduates high school she hopes to go to London to study music further in University and pursue it as a professional career in the future.



:)  

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

JANUARY WITH A BANG! - Aftermath

Thanks to all who came out to the salon, you guys made the January edition a roaring success! We're happy to present a set of photographs by Soefian Suradi!! Do check out the pictures HERE

Plus... if you missed Russell Morton's video art installation, here's a 'visual' walk-through!

 

Friday, 20 January 2012

SPORE Art Salon : January with a Bang!

YOU GUYS, we had a great time last month, albeit feeling just a wee bit nostalgic about the year coming to an end... but having everyone of you come out to the salon chased them blues away!! So all's good!

This January, we're starting off 2012 with a bang! We have in the line up a couple of big salon 'inaugurals' - Video installation art! A dance-ccentric hip-hop performance!! Two musicians, a breakthrough, presenting their very best!!! A NATIONAL poetry slam winner!!!! AND... performance art collaboration!!!! We are also very honoured to have an amazing dancer/musician/performer that you salon regulars will be familiar with, host the 14th edition for the very first time! And if you have caught the screening of 'The Cloud of Unknowing', representing Singapore at the 54th Venice Biennale... we have invited its main character to come model for drawing sessions that evening! So buckle up... and get ready to be Blown away!


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SPORE Art Salon is a non-profit initiative created for visual artists to meet, mingle, inspire, and share with performing artists. During the event, we alternate between drawing sessions with live models, and performances from musicians, contortionists, poets, dancers, actors and more. We also feature works of, and demonstrations by visual artists, individually or collaboratively.

For those who are new to the art salon, our event is modeled after world famous Giles Larrain's Art Salon in NYC, with a distinctly Singaporean twist and flavour!

There is a minimum donation of $7/person at the door, and proceeds will benefit our featured artists. The bar and kitchen will be open, so come have some drinks and dinner, meet, mingle and inspire with fellow creatives of various disciplines. Guests are encouraged to participate in the life drawing sessions in between performances, so, bring your sketch materials along!

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FB Event Page : https://www.facebook.com/events/282984878421242/

FEATURED VISUAL ARTISTS:

RUSSELL ADAM MORTON (video artist)

Russell Morton is a film maker from Singapore. He is currently based in London, UK, where he is doing his Masters in Fine Art from Camberwell College of the Arts.
Russell Morton

A video conceptualized as a creative-cathartic exercise for the artist will be installed at BluJaz Cafe for the SPORE Art Salon's 15th Edition. Having moved to a new country and desiring everything that he (Russell) cannot have, it dawned onto him that desire only exists when one cannot have it. After which, desire dies. The video glorifies a feminine figure; Laughing, dancing, playing cheekily at the omnipresent viewer, occasionally revealing a secret world that she possesses.

YEO SIEW HUA
(film maker / installation artist)
Yeo Siew Hua met Russell Morton for the first time in Venice Biennale 2011. In the lazy heat of summer noons and endless cool nights, both realised their common love for art, music, JCVD, and Italian words that make no sense. Allora!

Yeo made his debut feature film In the House of Straw (In Competition for the Golden Kinnaree Award, Bangkok International Film Festival 2009 (World Premiere) Official Selection, Singapore International Film Festival 2010), after he was broken and intrigued when his bicycle was stolen by bicycle thiefs. He wrote and directed short films such as Aik Khoon(competition for the Silver Screen Awards - Singapore International Film Festival 2005)and Waking Monkey (The Substation’s Best Film Award for the Best of First Takes 2007).He is also an award-winning director of photography for Ho Tzu Nyen’s The Bohemian Rhapsody Project and Sun Koh’s The Lucky 7 Project. He is currently reading Philosophy at the National University of Singapore, and can be seen drinking teh si kosong with friends in his spare time.

ADELINE SETIAWAN (installation artist)




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FEATURED PERFORMANCE ARTISTS:

JOHNSTON ANDERSON CHENG (featured model)



JOHNNY KIM (host)

Johnny Kim
Johnny comes to us from San Diego, California,
USA and is proud to be a part of the "Voyage de la Vie" family. He has performedall around the world with the Jean Ann Ryan Company on Norwegian Cruise Lines, graced the stage in the world famous "Les Folies Bergere" in Las Vegas, and defied gravity in "Cirque de la Mer" at Sea World San Diego. Some of his favorite credits include "Miss Saigon" at NCT, and the 31 city arena tour with the "Radio City Christmas Spectaular" starring that Radio City Rockettes.

Besides dance and acrobatics, Johnny is also a singer/songwriter and accomplished pianist. He would like to thank his family and friends for their unconditional love and support through this amazing journey.
Peace and Love.





Lee Jing Yan
LEE JING YAN (poet)
Jing Yan is an emerging local spoken word poet. Winner of the Singapore National Poetry Slam 2011, he considers himself very new to the medium of spoken word poetry, but enjoys the opportunity its affords him to deliver his words on stage to a live audience.

He spends his free time writing, playing music and devising new ways to fool his audiences into thinking he's a genius.








ALEKSANDR WADE (dancer)
http://www.youtube.com/user/ARworldWade
Aleksandr Wade
After conversation and much needed deliberation with Wendell Frando, Aleks will present 3 short dance pieces, hip hop inspired. Each piece will represent a reminder of certain periods in Aleks' life - from the past, present, and future, choreographed against the beats of selected music.

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, Aleksandr started off as a competitive gymnast. Taking beginning ballet during his training to improve his presentation was his only form of training through dance. When he got into high school for the performing arts he spent most of his time doing lights and sound as a technical theater major. It was not till his 3rd year where he finally got on stage and was cast in the school dance drama. Still a gymnast by profession at this point in life, he is inspired to dance more because, "Music talks to you, it would be rude if you did not talk back, DANCE!!", and hope to be well received by all.



EZZAM RAHMAN & DANIELA BELTRANI (performance artists)
Discover the 'healing process' of a physical pain in this performance collaboration between artists Ezzam Rahman and Daniela Beltrani.

Ezzam Rahman
Ezzam Rahman is a multi-disciplinary artist graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Fine Arts from University of Huddersfield. He had participated, initiated and curate numerous local and international group exhibition, events and festivals. He curated the Roving Artists at The Substation for the annual Night Festival in 2010/11 and was co-directing Fetter Field Performance Art Event from 2006/07/09 and 2012. Though he had been formally trained as a sculptor, he is most comfortable with installation and performance art. Ezzam's works vary from the choice of medium, concepts and strategies of presentation. He favours narratives due to the ability to convey his ideas, inform as well as to tease his audience. His current focus is to embed performance art in video and photographic presentations.

Ezzam enjoys talking to himself and smiles to sleep.



Daniela Beltrani

Daniela Beltrani, classically educated in Italy, a doctor in Law and a docent for the Singapore Art Museum, Daniela  gained a Masters of Arts in Contemporary Asian Histories in 2011 from Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore. Since 2010 Daniela had curated solo and group exhibitions and written articles for art publications. In June 2011 she set up a performance art platform, SPAM - Self Performance Art Meetings. Her interest in performance art both as spectator and performer allows her to explore different levels of communications. On lazy hot afternoons, Daniela enjoys sipping Teh Halia in Little India.


Fauzo & Edmund
THE RUSSIAN DOLLS (acoustic duo)
http://edzmusic.com
Fuelled by a fair passion for art and music, The Russian Dolls presents Fauzo & Edmund at the SPORE Art Salon, with a short but power-packed set of tunes to tickle and please your ears.

This duo, a web designer and an engineer by profession respectively, started down the path of music in early teens and has not looked back since.




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GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER
Soefian Suradi
http://www.soefian.com/

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

ObscuRed

Some good people recently launched obscured.sg, a web platform showcasing works of the creatives in Singapore. Hop on over to check out the growing list of photographers, musicians, film makers, poets (and more to come) that they have since put write ups together for.

" We scavenge and curate a collection of beautiful, home-grown, and raw works from the likes of aspiring
local writers, photographers, artists, film-makers, musicians and dreamers. "

Thursday, 12 January 2012

Another video clip! (13th Edition) + OPEN CALL!

Beautiful, talented Lea McGowan performed a dance contortion piece at the SPORE Art Salon, inspired by 2011 and looking on to 2012...


AND! The good folks over at SCYA (Singapore Contemporary Young Artists) are hosting an Open Call for WEYA (World Event Young Artist) 2012. All aspiring Singaporean young film makers, visual artists and poets aged between 18 to 30 are cordially invited to submit their best works for WEYA 2012. The festival, organized by WEYA, will be held in Nottingham, United Kingdom in September 2012. This will be an exciting opportunity for selected artists to showcase their works and to represent Singapore in a prestigious international setting!


In other news, we've got something pretty crazy up our sleeves for the 15th Edition that we're curating for the very first time, happening Tuesday 31 January 2012... save the date!!!

Monday, 2 January 2012

13th Edition : the aftermath!

HAPPY 2012, salonistas!!!

It was a great post-christmas, pre-newyear 13th Edition at the BluJaz Cafe, thanks to all who came out and witnessed some magic created by artists of awe-inspiring music, visual arts, literature and dance! Here's a short clip of what went on during the live sound-visual art collaboration between wyxmm on audio and Clare Ryan, projector art; this was possibly the most 'surrealistic' collab. we at the SPORE Art Salon has ever been treated to!


PLUS! A review by our dear friends over at wefoundnothing right here, photos for all PART 1, plus PART 2.

Love to everyone!

Tuesday, 20 December 2011

SPORE Art Salon : 13th Edition!

Happy Holidays, one and all...!

This month of December we kick off a new cycle of the SPORE Art Salon Editions (if you aren't in the know, we celebrated our first year anniversary last month!) with a mish-mash of featured visual and performing artists in our line up at BluJaz Cafe on a Wednesday evening. Come by, have some dinner, drinks, have a visual and auditory blast of a time! Oh yes, and don't forget those sketch materials - we have life drawing sessions in between stage performances!

There is a minimum donation of $7/person at the door, proceeds of your kind donation will benefit our featured artists and the pooling of the salon fund.



FB Event Page : https://www.facebook.com/events/313116895387463/

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FEATURED VISUAL ARTISTS



Clare Ryan
Experience the unique collaboration of soundscape and projector visuals with wxymm and aritst Clare Ryan.
Performance starts 7:30PM.

About the Artists -
CLARE RYAN
Clare Ryan (b. 1988) attained her Diploma in Fine Art (Printmaking) from Nanyang Academy of Fine Art (NAFA) in 2010. She works closely with traditional printmaking techniques and has a keen preference for etching and drawing. Interested in animation, Clare also designs and works with motion graphics. A former student of English Literature, she enjoys reading and writing in her free time, especially fascinated by mythology, storytelling and narrative work.

wxymm...
...doesn't mean anything. Made up from a series of random but coincidental letters. It looks like, but not entirely, a word that sounds like, but not quite like, something that can be pronounced. The sound/tunes/music/noise created are exactly the same.

wxymm
http://www.myspace.com/wyxmm
Terence Lau (aka wyxmm) is an emergent esoteric sound artist, excels at disarming melody lines and using random sound samples to add texture to his pieces. His works can be said to be a cross between music and soundscape. He has shared the stage with other performers such as One Man Nation, Darren Ng (sonicbrat), Zulkifle Mahmod, Cyril Wong, 10 (Korea), un escargot vide (France) and Tengal (Philippines) and has played in different countries such as Philippines and Hong Kong. He has also done sound works with Theatrestrays, Odyssey Dance Theatre and ECNAD’s Fireball 2011. In his professional life, he provides technical support for various arts and dance companies such as The Necessary Stage, Arts Fission and T.H.E. Dance Company to name a few.

 

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FEATURED PERFORMANCE ARTISTS



CHER (featured model)
Cher
Cher is not one thing, but many things. A general mischief-maker, she is also a feminist, artist, urban explorer, voracious reader, activist, hedonist, introvert, eco-conscious wanker, nerd, and blah blah blah. To borrow from writer and poet Audre Lorde, "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive." She has been life modelling for slightly more than 2 years and is interested in more performative aspects of the practice.




Iris Judotter
IRIS JUDOTTER
http://www.myspace.com/iris.judotter
http://www.youtube.com/judotter
Combining her love for words and music, Iris started writing songs when she was 12. Her debut EP "The Importance of Being..." was released under the label Above The Line Music which she started with her then business partner and manager. By then, she has already working as a music producer in the Singapore music scene after clinching her first publishing deal at 18. Being effectively trilingual, Iris has since produced and written songs regionally in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. She is currently working on her solo studio album and plans to release it early 2012.






Marc Nair
MARC NAIR
http://www.marcnair.com/
Marc Nair has been writing poetry for more than ten years. He has published two books, the latter one a volume of travel poems. He has set numerous poems to music with his band, Neon and Wonder, and performs original songs as well, gigging at various places around Singapore. Marc is also active in the poetry slam scene, and slams regularly at Blu Jaz Cafe. He also had the opportunity to represent Singapore at the World Poetry Slam in Paris in 2010. Marc is currently working as a project manager with Word Forward and does freelance photography on the side. Today he will read a range of poems from both his collections as well as some newer work.






LEA MCGOWAN (performance artist)
Lea McGowan
Lea McGowan began dancing in her mother's womb, she entered the world in Austin, Texas. She has danced her way around the US - working with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company in NYC, Alonzo King's LINES Ballet in San Francisco CA, Houston Ballet. She has a degree in Psychology and Dance Theater from the University of Tampa. Lea worked as a freelance dancer, model and performer in NYC before accepting an invitation from the founder of SPORE Art Salon, Ryan Beck - a dance and adagio acrobatic partner and good friend - to come to Singapore.