Asian Artists to Watch 2024: Ruben Pang

Each year, we identify the Asian artists on the rise, shining a light on the exciting and provocative works enriching the region’s artistic and cultural landscape. Singaporean artist Ruben Pang shares his story.

Best known for his evocative and fluid dreamscapes on metallic surfaces, Ruben Pang embarks on every new work with an intent to explore. Rather than create with a pre-conceived vision of the final work, Pang embraces the process. His method centres on intuition and spontaneity, as he uses his hands and various instruments to apply and manipulate oils, alkyds and acrylics, unfolding and discovering the images he needs to portray along the way. Aluminium panels, which provide a smooth and rigid surface, allow Pang to capture the nuances of each manipulation more effectively than traditional surfaces such as canvas.

Born in Singapore, Pang graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts in 2010. For him, chance, spontaneity, accident and conflict are critical components of creating art. He believes the artist’s work is naturally autobiographical and the process of painting gives him space to explore his psyche, internal conflicts and vulnerabilities.

A name to watch in Singapore’s contemporary art scene, Pang has exhibited widely in both solo and group exhibitions around the world. His 2021 solo exhibition, True Solarization, at Primo Marella Gallery in Milan, focused on his journey into self, creative chaos, and the intersection of consciousness and the unconscious.

With introspection playing a pivotal role in Pang’s work, his creations reflect his personal growth and explorations of the existential dilemmas of life, death, and metamorphosis. In his paintings, we find echoes of our own journeys of change and gain renewed perspectives on the human condition.

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