Michael Janssen Singapore is pleased to present its first solo exhibition with Singaporean artist Wong Lip Chin. Entitled Thousand Knives, this exhibition features a series of seven diptychs - each comprising an oil painting and a stainless steel relief, a pair of colour coated stainless steel chrome sculptures and video work.

An interactive multimedia installation built around an imagined dialogue between two former lovers, the works in Thousand Knives are presented in conversation with each other. Highlighting how human interactions often straddle the domains of truth and untruth and are charged with multiple layers of conflict, hidden agenda and tension, Thousand Knives explores fundamental aspects of the human condition namely how we come to form social associations, connections and affiliations with those around us and the nature of these relations.

With its meaning entirely beholden to its context, environment and audience, Thousand Knives comes inspired by Relational Art and the Relational Aesthetics movement. Reducing the artist’s role to that of a mere catalyst, the purposeful construction of an environment and focus on the viewer’s experience raises questions about traditional forms of art namely painting and sculpture: exploring their processes, their status as objects, their ability to establish meaning, and hence their potential for effective communication and ability to bridge gaps between Artist and Viewer.

Elevating the works beyond being mere objects and into the realm of ideas, Thousand Knives is thus very much also a philosophical musing and intellectual inquiry about Art and Meaning, marking a development in the artist’s practice as he makes a pivotal shift towards conceptual art.

A deeply personal project more than five years in the making, Thousand Knives is Lip’s first solo project in recent years.