Ivan David Ng’s practice investigates what it means to exist as a human, wedged between the celestial and terrestrial, recognizing our experiential and historical ties to land and sky.
These paintings contemplate the sun and the moon in a world in flux. The behaviour of these celestial bodies is characterised by predictability, which is why humanity has used them as timekeepers for thousands of years. The paintings incorporate collaged photographs of the observed light of the moon and the sun from the earth, in the form of light streaks and sky gradients, which function as metaphors of consistency. The same nature of light from these celestial bodies had been experienced by human beings, in the face of the ebb and flow of history and its cataclysms. Gestures and marks in paint and material function as agents of change, effacing and veiling. The repetitive application of the images of light and its erasure creates densely layered surfaces that simulate a dance of perpetuity and change. This interplay incarnates a cyclical, mystical condition of creation and renewal, which is often overlooked in an urban, materialist, information-saturated context.
