Hong Sek Chern was the recipient of the Young Artist Award given by the National Arts Council. The Helix is part of the Raised Tumpal series that the artist is embarking that marks a shift from her Chinese ink works of architectural structures she calls ‘habitable structures’ to painting landscapes using oils. The Raised Tumpal series signals Sek Chern’s interest in re-inventing landscape painting to include layers of hidden meanings such as human figures embedded in the landscapes, depicting the ‘unsung heroes’ of Singapore comprising of blue collar workers such as cleaners.The Helix is part of the The Raised Tumple Series that juxtaposes the building of monumental structures such as the Helix Bridge in Singapore’s re-invented urbanscape with the hidden figure of a cleaner who works at the Marina Bay Sands. The pixilation of the landscape is part of the artist’s experimentations with the internet that results in pixelated images when the server slows down when one downloads images. The artist is also interested in the layering of meanings with the landscape, the hidden figures and the pixilation as different layers that construct multiple narratives of Singapore’s histories.
