Mr Tan Oe Pang, you have a Google problem. I was invited to a donation of your artworks last Tuesday, and I almost didn’t go. Because when I typed your name into Google images, what I got was this:

UGLY! UGLY!

Then I remembered there would be free food, so whatevs. The 20 paintings were being donated by board member of the Singapore Art Museum and BreadTalk CEO George Quek, by the way.

BUT BUT BUT two surprises! Surprise #1: I got payoff as soon as Guest of Honour Prof Tommy Koh went up to speak:

TOMMY KOH: I know that a lot of the second generation artists feel we have not loved them. We have devoted a lot of attention to the first generation artists and now we are giving a lot of attention to the young third generation artists, and they are sandwiched in between. So I want them to know that the Singapore Art Museum aspires to collect more of your works and aspires to show more of you when we open. We love you and we intend to do justice to you.

(He’s the one hiding behind the reporter’s head).

As I was saying, HELL YEAH! Seriously, SAM’s neglect of the Teo Eng Seng generation has been egregious. Anthony Poon had to actually die before you gave him a sorta-kinda retrospective.

Surprise #2 happened when I walked into the gallery upstairs.  The exhibition is really quite good!

(That’s Oe Pang in the centre.  He was in the middle of speaking, I think.  He doesn’t usually look quite so blur.)

First of all, the curators have made some video to showcase the artist’s painting process and subject matter so we can better grok the 20 donated paintings.  That’s what the guys above are gawking at.  Good idea: changes the nature of the space.

Second of all, Oe Pang’s paintings are not actually ugly in real life.  His Painting of Buffalo, 2002 looks deformed and top-heavy on the monitor, but it’s actually of a pretty big size, so when hung correctly, the animal’s posterior is foreshortened and the overall the effect is impressive.

It might be better just to share some close-up shots:

from Painting of Buffalo, 2002

from Calligraphy, 2009

from Pond of Fishes, 2000

(I don’t have the titles for this one and the next one on hand. Some other time.)

Mr Tan’s actually more famed and successful overseas than in Singapore. He’s exhibited and been appreciated in Beijing, Mannheim, DC, Glasgow, Shenzhen, Taipei. Shown in the International Biennial of Arts Valparaiso, Chile, too. He gets respect for his craft from people in countries where Chinese ink brush painting is a form understood by the masses. Writes Chinese poetry, too.

So good for you, Mr Tan: you get your due. Will TNAGS/SAM put his stuff on their walls any time again in the next ten years? They’d bloody well better.

(And yeah, another reason I wasn’t so keen on coming was because of the whole Ai Wei Wei thing. Sigh.)