A broom, a chair, a cleaning station, a pop star. In the hands of Singaporean artist and printmaker Christian Tan, the familiar becomes something worth pausing over. The autistic artist, overall winner of the UOL X ART:DIS Art Prize 2025, is presenting his first solo exhibition, Held in the Middle, at Objectifs from 1 to 11 October 2026. Bringing together about 30 linocut prints, the exhibition draws from the objects, people and interests that shape his everyday life, moving between the routines of work, the quiet necessity of rest and the pleasures of popular culture.
Officially launched on 30 September by Guest-of-Honour Denise Phua, Mayor of Central Singapore District and Member of Parliament for Jalan Besar GRC, the exhibition marks the largest presentation of Christian’s artistic practice to date. Its title reflects the way familiar objects often sit at the centre of his compositions. Given space and attention, things that might otherwise pass unnoticed become subjects in their own right.
Christian’s award-winning trio of prints, Red Plumbing Set, Yellow Broom and Floor Scrubbing, offers a starting point for understanding his visual world. Inspired by his experience working as a cleaner, the works transform everyday tools into bold, carefully composed images. Created through layered reduction printing, they draw attention to the contours, colours and gestures associated with labour that is often overlooked.
Mops, pails, spray bottles, brooms and scrubbers recur throughout his practice. Removed from their usual functional settings, these objects take on a different presence. Their forms become graphic and almost emblematic, while the work behind them is given a quiet dignity.
The exhibition extends this attention to other parts of daily life. His chair and seating works turn towards the moments between activity: a place to wait, rest, sit with someone or simply be alone. Often depicted without a person, the chairs nevertheless suggest a human presence, as though someone has just stepped away or is about to return.
Alongside these scenes of labour and rest are portraits of pop culture favourites, including Jon Bon Jovi and Roxette. Their presence brings music, admiration and personal enjoyment into the exhibition, revealing another side of Christian’s interests and imagination. Together, the works move between toil and leisure, showing how the ordinary can hold meaning well beyond its immediate purpose.
Introduced to linocut printmaking in 2019, Christian has developed a distinctive visual language marked by bold outlines, vivid colours and a directness of image. Linocut involves carving an image into a sheet of linoleum before transferring it onto paper. Christian works across wet and dry techniques, including reduction processes that build layered depth into his prints. His compositions favour clarity and strong forms over ornamentation, allowing the subject itself to hold attention.
Curator John Tung sees the exhibition as an opportunity to understand the breadth of Christian’s interests rather than viewing individual works in isolation. “This exhibition offers a holistic view of Christian’s artistic interests. As with any solo-artist presentation, the opportunity to engage with a broader body of work offers keener insights into their practice. To this end, Christian delights – the toil of labour is blended with the whimsy of leisure. Each work is articulate in chronicling aspects of his life otherwise a secret to us. I endeavoured to articulate these sensibilities in my approach to curation of the exhibition.”
For Christian, the opportunity to share that world with a wider audience is itself a milestone. “I’m happy to have my first solo exhibition. I enjoy making linocut prints and drawing things I see and like. I hope visitors will look at these familiar things in a new way. I’m thankful to UOL and ART:DIS for supporting me and excited to share my work with more people,” he says.
Christian’s solo exhibition forms part of his prize as the overall winner of the UOL X ART:DIS Art Prize 2025, which included a $20,000 grand prize and the opportunity to stage a solo show. For UOL Group Chief Executive Liam Wee Sin, the exhibition represents an important next step in the artist’s development and a chance for more people to encounter his work. He also draws a parallel between Christian’s approach and Andy Warhol’s pop art philosophy, in which mass-market objects such as Campbell’s Soup cans were elevated into the realm of fine art.
Through his own distinctive printmaking, Christian similarly redirects attention towards things that surround us, inviting viewers to reconsider what deserves to be seen. The exhibition is part of a longer relationship between UOL and ART:DIS, which UOL has supported for more than a decade. The Group launched the art prize in 2023 as part of its 60th-anniversary corporate social responsibility programme, creating opportunities for artists with disabilities at different stages of their practice.
The 2025 edition received more than 570 submissions, compared with over 300 in its inaugural year. Eighteen winning artworks were showcased at ION Art Gallery before travelling to UOL malls and hotels, reaching more than one million visitors. Christian’s own practice has also begun to reach beyond gallery walls. In January 2026, his work was commissioned for Next Stop: Together!, a public art project presented during Singapore Art Week, with his artwork installed at HarbourFront MRT station.
Later this year, his works will be among 469 pieces created by artists with disabilities from ART:DIS featured in the opening of UOL’s luxury NoMad hotel at Orchard Road, which will showcase more than 1,500 newly commissioned artworks.
For now, Held in the Middle offers a more intimate encounter with the artist: a chance to see the things he notices, the subjects he returns to and the visual language he has made his own. In Christian’s hands, a broom can become a portrait of labour, a chair a meditation on rest, and a pop star an expression of joy: sometimes, seeing the everyday differently is where art begins.
Held in the Middle runs from 1st to 11th October 2026, Objectifs, 155 Middle Road, Singapore 188977, open Tuesday–Saturday, 12pm–7pm; Sunday, 12pm–4pm. Admission, more information available here
