Gentle Again

EVENT DESCRIPTION

THE SHOPHOUSE is pleased to present Gentle Again, a curated exhibition of 8 artists in a dialogue surrounding intimacy, distance, ease, and effort. We crave for comfort in the mere moments between the violence and anxiety, and we search endlessly for places of rest. Featuring Huang Ko Wei, Rachel Lancaster, Robin Megannity, Ciarán Murphy, Paul Robas, Tung Wing Hong, Yu Shuk Pui Bobby, and Zhang Lian, the exhibition examines our innate yearning for tenderness. In a world of trials and trouble, suffering is inevitable – all we can do is ask that our discomfort be gentle now, and gentle again.
 
Featuring a body of works on canvas, video artworks, and kinetic installations, the exhibition plays with a precarious balance of soft tensions. The works highlight moments of suspense, either captured through an isolated image or prolonged via time-based media with postponed or indefinite endings. The artworks collectively allude to the notion of ‘the moment before’ – namely the moment before a conclusion is revealed and before relief or devastation is confirmed. In this moment, we are safe – we are swaddled in a liminal space between speculation and reality, where anticipation and our inner optimist can exist. Bound together by broken stories, the exhibition underscores a sense of incompletion that is paradoxically evocative of placidity and disquietude.
 
An array of non-contiguous narratives – reflecting topics of iconographic duality, identity construction, affective phenomena, geographical mobility, and more – is brought to the surface, elucidating glimpses of conflict that breach the peace. As if a distorted mirror of real life, the underlying significance of each work, where our distress is quiet unless disturbed. A haven enveloped in hushed chatter,  the exhibition proposes a choice – should we acknowledge the pain, or do we accept the comfort?