Resident Artist
 
Iskandar Jalil
Jimmy Lee
Charlotte Cain
Suriani Suratman
Low Kok Hwee
Tan Joo Ean
Tan Joo Lett
Toh Kiam Hock
Mrs Toh-Tan Ah Chiew
Jean & John Tan
Lim Chong Beng
Sunsook Roh
Vinata Goswamy
Helga Rude Nelson
Sutopo Ngasiman
Todd Tok
Ong Gek Hong
Ann Soh
Hazel Ng
Gonneke Verschoor
Alison Chadwick-Lim
 
 
Visiting Artist
 
Tang Chong Wing
Pang Kee Eng
Pang Hoi Seong
Lim Beng Teck
Johnny Lee
Crystal Cho
Choo
Tan Gek Lin
Tan Keng Joo
Priscilla Teoh-Stoute
Tan Siew Cheng
Henrietta Schricke
Carol Chow Kau
Lee Boon Choon
Seah Lei Choo
Tan Tiah Chang
 
 
Project Artist
 
Jason Lim
Jessie Lim
Delia Prvacki
 
Sunsook Roh

Address: 13 Eastwood Walk, Singapore 486465
Telephone: (65) 6726 2460
Email: sunsookroh@yahoo.com


Artist¡¯s Biography:

Sunsook Roh is an installation sculptor and performance artist currently based in Singapore and New York. She has exhibited installation sculpture and did performance works in New York, Japan, Singapore and Korea. Selected exhibitions and performances include ¡°The Reconstruction Biennial,¡± Exit Art, New York, ¡°100 Years 100 Dreams, (centennial anniversary of Korean immigration to the U.S.),¡± Space World, New York, ¡°Form,¡± Korean Cultural Center, New York, ¡°JAALA Exchange Exhibition,¡± Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, ¡°Tree of Life V,¡± solo show at Sculpture Square, Singapore, and ¡°2010 Asia Contemporary Art / Now and Next,¡± Guangju National Museum, Korea. She obtained a BFA majoring in Sculpture with a minor in Art History from Parsons School of Design, New York. She also obtained a MFA in Sculpture from Bard College, New York.

 

Artist Statement:

My recurring themes in art making include interconnected levels: free energy flow that is the deterministic continuum of time, the transience of our own existence and the temporality of life, and the inevitable process of transformation that tests our limited comprehension of the unpredictable, that leads to the final level of my internal compass through my relationship with God.

Transience is my own personal struggle, as I grapple with my identity gained and lost through living in different countries. Singapore as my new home for the past four years, I have made many new friends and acquaintances here, who speak in different tongues. Transience and impermanence are the reality that I experience as an ¡®in-betweener.¡¯ This process of personal experience finds expression in my art.

Selected Exhibitions:

  • 2010 ¡°In Transition,¡± Ion Gallery, Singapore
  • 2010 ¡°DIS/PLACEMENT: 6,¡± Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore
  • 2010 ¡°2010 Asia Contemporary Art / Now & Next,¡± Guangju National Museum, Republic of Korea
  • 2010 ¡°2010 Asia Contemporary Art / Space & Imagination,¡± Chonnam Provincial Okgwa Museum, Republic of Korea
  • 2010 ¡°Tree of Life V: Landscape of the Psychology of the Mind,¡± solo show, Sculpture Square, Singapore
  • 2010 ¡°Cabinet of Curiosities,¡± Artspace@Helutrans, charity fundraising exhibition for National Cancer Centre Singapore, Singapore
  • 2010 Artist Residency Program, Sculpture Square, Singapore
  • 2009 ¡°Singapore International Art Fair¡± EXPO Singapore
  • 2009 ¡°Small Sculpture Show 09¡± Sculpture Square, Singapore
  • 2009 ¡°A Fresh Start,¡± Andrew Shire Gallery, Singapore Art Show 09
  • 2009 ¡°Let the Rivers Clap Their Hands,¡± Solo Show, Sculpture Square, Singapore
  • 2008 ¡°Art in a Senseless World,¡± SMU Arts Festival 2008, Singapore
  • 2006 ¡°JAALA Exchange Exhibition,¡± Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
  • 2005 ¡°Eternal Asia,¡± Chuwa Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
  • 2005 ¡°Postcards From the Edge,¡± Robert Miller Gallery, New York
  • 2005 ¡°The Journey,¡± (solo show) Ono Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
  • 2005 ¡°Art for Peace Kawasaki 2005,¡± Kawasaki, Japan
  • 2005 ¡°Art Scene of Ginza,¡± Gallery Ginza 2chome, Tokyo, Japan
  • 2003 ¡°The Reconstruction Biennial,¡± (installation / performance) Exit Art, New York
  • 2003 ¡°100 Years 100 Dreams¡± (exhibit celebrating centennial anniversary of Korean immigration to the U.S.), Space World, New York
  • 2002 ¡°Postcards From the Edge,¡± Visual Aids, Sperone Westwater, New York
  • 2002 ¡°Universal Builders Supply Masters,¡± UBS, Redhook, New York
  • 2001 ¡°Form,¡± Gallery Korea, Korean Cultural Center, New York
  • 2001 ¡°Fall Group Show,¡± Clifton Center for the Arts, Clifton, New Jersey
  • 2001 ¡°Absorption on the Ground 31,¡± Space World, New York
  • 2001 ¡°Millennium Saloon Exhibit,¡± ArtLab, Passaic, New Jersey
  • 2001 ¡°Beyond the Center,¡± Bard College Exhibition Center, Redhook, New York
  • 1999 Pushing, ArtLab, Passaic, New Jersey
  • 1998 "Vision & Fusion" ArtLab, Passaic, New Jersey

 

Education:

  • 2003 Bard College, Milton Avery Graduate School Of The Arts, MFA in Sculpture, New York
  • 1997 Parsons School Of Design, BFA in Sculpture, Minor in Art History, New York, NY
  • 1988 National Academy Of Design, New York

 

Recent Exhibitions:

Speaking Wall
Ion Gallery, Singapore, 2010

This work is a maquette sculpture for a larger proposed installation for a site specific installation to be approximately 12 feet tall by 3 feet wide. The tongues are made of ceramic, and are embedded but protruding from a mound of sand and cement. I am conscious of a timeline in human experience, of the words being spoken and built consciously and subconsciously upon words that were spoken in the past. This work raises a question about the exchanges between our individual voice and those of our collective voices, as they play out time and again throughout the changing events of history.

 

 

My Tongue Will Speak
Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore 2010

I am raising questions about how, when and what we say, and how these words affect us all. The words from tongues can inspire, save and support, or they can hurt, demean and marginalize a person, not just here and now but across the generations and around the world. I made 200 tongues as a metaphor for spoken words, physically displaced and separated from the body. Tongues in different shapes and colors represent the voices of different cultures in socio-political context. With great speeches, common dialogues, wishing whispers or screaming words, and with time and culture in mind, we may find ourselves at times more disconnected than connected. The installation consists of resin, acrylic light boxes and a draped table. The large resin cast tongue mounted on the wall above is a metaphor for The eternal Word, which is the reference, influence, and cover for the expressions of the many parochial tongues on the light table below.

 

 

 

O¡¯ For A Thousand Tongues
Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore 2010

¡°(Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners ) I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me,¡± says the Lord. 1 Corinthians 14:21

This is an installation made as a journey that evokes viewers to bridge their own messages of the past, present and future as well as the unchanging eternal voice from the higher presence. Through this journey, we may ponder messages that serve through all time, and reconcile them with what we express here in the present, as well as with how we imagine the dreams and aspirations of people who have lived in the past. The wall projection images are from resin cast tongues, in front of which are floating words and letters hanging from the ceiling. These are deconstructed texts from the Scripture shown above.

 

 

Mother Tongue
Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore 2010

¡°Mother Tongue,¡± is a 15 minute performance piece created for the opening of the exhibition. The work consists of performers, microphones, and speaking stands of wood, resin and drapes. The speaking stands will remain as sculpture throughout the duration of the exhibition. The video documentation of the performance is being played continuously on TV monitor. With the identity concealed to the audience behind the draped speaking stands, the performers take position at their respective boxes. The first performer expresses his/her hopes and wishes in his/her native language, after which the other performers follow, one-by-one accordingly. Spoken languages will include English, Hokkien, Mandarin, Hindi, Tamil, Korean, Malay, Spanish and Myanmar. At the end, all of the performers will speak simultaneously turning the messages into some indecipherable blur of sound, without reference to human physical reality except for the tongues and voices.

 

 

 

Tree of Life V: Landscape of the Psychology of the Mind
Sculpture Square, Singapore 2010

This sculptural installation, ¡°Tree of Life V,¡± is a continuation of my exploration about the transience of life that I have been pursuing in my ¡°Tree of Life¡± series, which delves into concerns over time, origin and memories. ¡°Tree of Life III¡± refers to the physical domain and how the body defends and heals. ¡°Tree of Life IV¡± refers to the external environment as an inspiration for the nurturing processes of life. In ¡°Tree of Life V,¡± I take the journey inward, into the psychological landscape of the mind, referring to the way that we cope, code and recollect our experiences.

How do we perceive, connect and experience and then store those experiences into memories? What does memory mean in relation to the transience of our being as we age, forget and ultimately die; and what does it mean as memory changes and evolves through new experiences into a new memory, in a state of constant flux as it passes from person-to-person, building up the branches of human history.

The architecture of the installation has been made inspired by how billions of nerve cells inside our brain transmit messages by receptors and make possible memory and other functions of the human mind, our source of humanity. At a macro level, I made the trunk of a tree with branches (of fiberglass, polymer and wire mesh) to suggest the blood vessels that nourish the brain. At the micro level, to suggest the myriad web of neurons, I built fiberglass/resin shells of domes and half-domes interconnected by vines made of polymer and wire. The interior or exterior of the dome shells harbor surprises of some mysterious growth, a metaphor for neuron receptacles that code, store and retrieve information.

 

 

 

Let the Rivers Clap Their Hands
Sculpture Square, Singapore 2009

¡°Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy.¡± Psalm 98:7-8

This is a new installation project that expresses my concern and desire for societal harmony among people of the world. I used natural media, including clay, wood and sand to depict the movement of water as the progression of life. The tightly woven sinuous swirl of the tables suggests a great turbulent energy created by the merging of symbolic sources of water, whether cascading down terraces, as from the highest tables, or bubbling up from an unseen subterranean origin, as from the lowest tables. Often throughout history where rivers merge great civilizations have sprouted, such as at the Ganges, Yangtze, Euphrates, Tigris, Nile, etc. Despite their different points of origin and different journeys, with water as their commonality, they forged an even greater river. Likewise we have different cultural origins and experiences, but a common destiny. While trying to interact with one another, we see frictions like the churning of water when rivers of different sources meet. This is a metaphor for how our contemporary societies of different cultures can result in social conflict and chaos rather than in a peaceful harmonious exchange.

Solo Show 2

 

 

Pulse
SMU Arts Festival, Singapore 2008

¡®I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.¡¯ 1 Corinthians 3:6

This work is about pulse or rhythm of life, which essentially comes from the sound of dripping water. The water comes from bowls hanging from the ceiling that drip at various rates; some fast and some slow; with the drops falling on different objects on a table. The sound is amplified through hidden multiple small microphones under the objects. I filled the bowls of different sizes with water and by using intravenous lines and the clamping valve mechanism, the rate is controlled at different speeds. The infusion lines become lifelines of the circulatory system in the city (the table set up) with its life sustaining water supply. Since the constant dripping results in an accumulation of water on the table, I built a drainage system, which then feeds the plants on the floor and suggests an interconnected eco system. I would like viewers to come to this installation and sit down, listen, and watch and maybe even go into meditative state and wake up to realize his or her own real pulse of life.



 
Copyright © 2006
Jalan Bahar Clay Studios, 97L Lorong Tawas, Singapore 639824