Teo Eng Seng
We’re Happy. Are You Happy?
National Gallery Singapore
Sep 6, 2024–Feb 2, 2025

“The role of art-making is to make people think and work in their own ways. If you are a thinking person, you can be yourself,” Singaporean artist Teo Eng Seng shared in his interview with curator Adele Tan for his solo exhibition “Teo Eng Seng: We’re Happy. Are You Happy?” at the National Gallery Singapore. Perhaps no truer words have been said, especially for an artist famed for pioneering his original medium paperdyesculp, a medium involving shaping dyed papier-mâché and other natural fibers into sculptural works.

While abstract expressionism dominated the 1960s and '70s when Teo began his practice, he was conscious of how his work, which initially consisted of two-dimensional oil paintings, might be perceived as derivative of Western movements. Early works like Essence of Life (1965) depict swaths of orange, amber, and ocher, reflecting Teo’s initial interest in the movement and Rothko’s color field paintings. In 1979, Teo made a decisive shift, turning his focus to paper, a medium he associated with “Eastern” tradition. He began mixing paper pulp with flowers, leaves, and natural fibers to create unique material compositions. Through this labor-intensive process, he developed paperdyesculp, which became his signature medium for creating works of sculptural, three-dimensional quality.

“Teo Eng Seng: We’re Happy. Are You Happy?” charts the artist’s oeuvre, highlighting his interest in expressing everyday experiences and social commentary through material exploration and spontaneity. Divided into two sections—the first being “Don’t Try to Read it, See it, Feel it” and the second “Sweet Talk, Straight Talk”—the exhibition’s first half takes its title from Teo’s 1986 paperdyesculp on paper work. Drawing on his English education and limited familiarity with Chinese characters, Teo creates bold calligraphy-like strokes that suggest, rather than represent, these characters. The work invites viewers to contemplate each mark’s visual presence, rather than search for literal meaning.

Teo’s exploration of viewer participation could also be seen in his 1975 work, The Mind. Incorporating unconventional materials such as light bulbs, acrylic, painted wood, electrical circuits, and switches, the installation draws visitors into pressing switches that illuminate different bulbs. In fostering spontaneous play, the work delightfully realizes Teo’s vision of art as a catalyst for active engagement.

Social engagement is central to Teo’s practice, particularly in his witty commentary on Singapore’s economic development. This approach is exemplified by his 1986 work The Net (Most Definitely Singapore River), in which Teo used paperdyesculp on netting to create richly textured organic forms in ecru, deep brown, and dirty blues. Suspended across three meters in height and width, these forms represented, in Teo’s words, “the flotsam and jetsam floating in the river which would be swept away together with the traditional trades when the river was cleaned up.” The work references the Singapore River’s colonial history as a trading hub, before its large-scale clean-up by government agencies from 1977–1989. Through its bold, abstract take on the Singapore River, the work challenges the popular naturalistic depictions of the waterway by “first generation” Singaporean artists such as watercolor painter Ong Kim Seng and Chinese ink painter Lim Tze Ping.

The exhibition’s second half presents Teo’s social critique through mixed-media works such as We’re Happy. Are You Happy? (1997) and the steel installation WMD? (2005). In We’re Happy. Are You Happy?, paperdyesculp birds sit stiffly in a birdcage, with the bars transformed into Corinthian columns. By incorporating these Greco-Roman architectural elements, which became symbols of wealth and luxury in 1990s Singapore, Teo critiques a society trapped by its material pursuit, questioning contentment amid the nation’s rapid economic growth. WMD?, created in response to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, takes its name from “weapons of mass destruction.” The work combines a scrapped steel cylinder with a Kevlar helmet, creating a form that resembles both phallus and missile, suggesting the role of masculinity in international geopolitics and warfare.

Thought-provoking, visceral, and undoubtedly humorous, the solo exhibition revealed the personal and social conditions that shaped Teo’s distinctive material approaches and visually striking practice, allowing his keen social consciousness and sharp wit to shine through.

Stephanie Yeap is a Singaporean arts writer and communications professional based in London.

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