The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore presents Dancing with the Cosmos: Three Decades of Work from Kumari Nahappan, a solo exhibition surveying prominent Singaporean artist Kumari Nahappan’s three-decade-long artistic practice, curated by John Z.W. Tung. This showcase will be the first of the museum’s upcoming line-up of programmes at its new premise, featuring over 50 works which include Nahappan’s monumental site-specific installations, paintings and sculptures, some of which are re-creations of past iterations that have not been seen by the public since the mid-1990s.

Inspired by the Hindu cosmological notion of cyclical time, the exhibition organises the artworks not chronologically but by colour, allowing visitors to witness the diverse yet interconnected nature of Nahappan’s practice. Nature, rituals, time and space are themes that have long been part of Nahappan’s works and are also encapsulated throughout the exhibition. Each intimate space reflects specific colours that take prominence at various periods of Nahappan’s practice, representative of a diversity of themes and a recurrence of Nahappan’s interests over an expanse of time.

Characterised by constant evolution, Nahappan’s varied employment of materiality from organic matter to man-made structures and found objects breathes new life into her pieces, allowing them to transcend two-dimensional visuality and engage with the senses on multiple levels. Immersing in Nahappan’s fields of colour, the exhibition allows visitors to contend with the existence of these countless universes and their cycles.

Kumari Nahappan (b. 1953, Malaysia) is a prominent Singaporean artist in Southeast Asia. Her practice encompasses inter-disciplinary genres, painting, sculpture and installations. She has forged a reputation for effectively reconciling the language of “international contemporary art” with her own vocabulary and developing a visual identity that is decisively shaped by her cultural roots and beliefs. Her diverse body of work, including paintings, sculptures, and installations, has been showcased internationally in renowned venues such as the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the Museum der Kulturen in Basel. Nahappan is celebrated for her iconic sculptures in landmark locations in Singapore, and has earned accolades such as the Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards, UOB Painting of the Year, and the Ksatria Seni Award (2004) from Bali’s Museum Rudana.

Dancing with the Cosmos: Three Decades of Work from Kumari Nahappan runs from 31st August to 22nd October 2023 at The Private Museum at 11 Upper Wilkie Road, Singapore 228120. More information available here