Born in 1959 in Singapore, Suzann Victor is regarded as one Singapore’s foremost contemporary artists. Victor graduated from the University of Sydney with a Master of Arts (Honours) in Visual Art in 2000 and received her doctorate from her alma mater in 2009. She gained significant international attention with her dramatic installations that address issues related to the female body and the post-colonial condition. Victor has exhibited at the 2nd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1996), 6th Havana Biennale (1997), 6th Gwangju Biennale (2006), and Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves (2007) at ZKM, Germany.‘Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame’ marks an important early shift in Victor’s artistic direction, in which she began to produce installation works that were highly performative, incorporating kinetic and aural elements. In this installation, Victor sought alternative strategies to conjure the human body as well as explore its attendant associations such as sexual desire, fantasy, fulfilment, death and the fraught nature of corporeality.
