Singapore Art Museum on Chu1-Er4

Admission was free at the Singapore Art Museum today and I decided to pay it a visit... Not a big fan of new year visiting and too poor/sian to go shopping. There were two exhibitions I wanted to see -- These very pop-artish paintings by Chinese contemporary artist Feng Zhengjie; and hand-woven pieces by renowned S'porean fashion designer Benny Ong (The banner on the left depicts one of his works).
I was very drawn to Feng Zhengjie's art-- Though most of his glamorous women drawings on display were primarily in rather clashing colors of bright pink and green, the overall effect was so... captivating. And I couldn't help but marvel at the nice blend of colors on the life-size oil paintings...
Hee, though I think picture-taking was not allowed, I sneakily took some (Aiyah it didn't seem to be strictly enforced, so I assumed it was ok :P). I somehow really like the shot I captured above, with the men discussing the glam woman painting :P

More glam women paintings... They are all in green/pink style, but took a couple in black-and-white. I think it actually shows how well his shading is done.....

I find this quote very true... on the other side of this wall was an English translation --

It is very easy to change one's appearance or pick up a new kind of fashion - A way or a style to maintain one's looks or a very cosmopolitan lifestyle... But it's not that easy to emulate inner substance and the more intangible values in life.

One of themes that Feng Zhengjie tries to explore is the divide/ tension that exists between the inner life of an individual and the outer face that is turned to the world... Which is supposedly why all his women portraits all have diverging eyes... They are beautiful but disturbing at the same time... and I get the feeling that they are all hiding something...

This last picture was not taken at the SAM, but at a rather run-down building right behind the SAM... and according to my mum, it's the old Catholic High Sch... True enough, I found the words "Gong Jiao Zhong Xue". Though old and somewhat dilapidated, it had quite a serene feel to it. This was one of many little angel statues lining the stone-wall structure fronting the side road. I thought the stairways in the background were really lovely... :)

Had an extremely early (5pm!) reunion dinner at a Teochew restaurant this year. Think ppl are increasingly busy (or lazy) and so dine-out reunion dinners are getting very common. The restaurant I dined at had 3 sessions -- 5pm, 7pm and 9pm... So it was somewhat difficult to like stick around after dinner 'cos restaurant was waiting to 'recycle' our seats :P Nonetheless, it was actually nice to get home early to laze around/tidy up a bit...

Was sorting out letters and re-discovered this letter from DBS... with the Live Fresh credit card enclosed, only pending activation. Wanted to toss it away but decided no harm finding out what's so special abt this credit card... Ok, most of the discounts/offers didn't catch my eye... BUT they had an interesting section with discounts on courses. "15% off aerial photography/ jewellery-making courses", one of the 'perks' read. Upon further investigation, I was directed to the Emily Hill website and the art workshops offered.... and hey, they seem pretty cool. The aerial photography course seems fun and out of the world and I would totally try it if not for the fact that it costs like $400 for 3 sessions. Sigh, out of budget. But I might really go for one of the printmaking/jewellery-making stuff :) Hai, I might activate this credit card after all.....

A Happy Chinese New Year to all!

My problem with FB...

One thing I absolutely detest abt FB is how some applications refuse to let you proceed to a more advanced level/ play around with more interesting features unless you invite XX number of friends. As a result, Facebookers will flood their friends with invitations to add this/that application... Maybe I dun understand the fine details of how things work and there are actually ways to get around this... but this 'requirement' really puts me off! Simply 'cos you have to bug your friends to be able to derive greater utilty/ enjoyment from the application... Else having that application is quite fei4. And I hate doing it 'cos it requires too much 'pro-activeness' for the AS me. And sometimes you invite ppl not really 'cos you want your friends to have the application; but cos you want to find out what this application is capable of and you can't find out unless you invite XXX friends. Like so insincere.

Hee... actually I also dun like how sometimes ppl find you and add you when you scarcely know them. Then like you add all these random ppl as your friends, when in actual fact maybe only like 1/3 of your friends on FB are your friend-friends... In short, these kinda social networking sites not too appealing to AS ppl like me :P (Very mao dun right, then why i still join? Why i dun quit? I guess there's still a tiny KPO streak in me that wants to know what's going on with ppl I know)

That said, I have to say that some applications are pretty cool. Esp those that dun entail these inviting here and there. All the AS-friendly ones lah. Such as the Traveller IQ Challenge thingy.. can just keep playing and playing on my own. But realised my geography really v lousy... haha. Ppl who come up with all these applications can get so creative!