From 24 April to 31 May, 2014 Art Plural Gallery presented Spurious Stories from the Land and Water, the solo exhibition of Singaporean artist Sherman Ong. The exhibition featured two photography series Monsoon and Spurious Landscapes as well as a short film.
Born in 1971 in Malaysia and based in Singapore, Sherman Ong’s work centres on the relationships between humans and their environment. Addressing the climate difficulties in South East Asia, he broadens his speech to borderless issues, travelling around the world to voice the crises he meets. Photographs and videos express the characters’ loss and breathlessness in spaces ruled by uncontrollable telluric forces.
Surprisingly, Sherman Ong’s captured instants do not relate to the human struggle against an undisciplined nature, but rather humidity, monsoon, droughts are the dominant subjects of the work. Characters are mainly seen seated or acting as in an everyday and imperturbable life where elements violently unleash. Hoping for the best and devoted to time, a consensus seems to be understood by the depicted men and women: “life goes on” - a radical but necessary choice.
