DAVID CHAN (Singaporean, B. 1979)

Winner of the 23rd United Overseas Bank Painting of the Year in the Representational Medium Category, Singaporean artist David Chan renders his realistically painted animals, humans and hybrids against monochromatic backgrounds of intense blues, purples, yellows and pinks. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) in Fine Art from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Chan has since exhibited in Beijing, New York, Taipei, Shanghai and Singapore.

Part of his 2005 solo-exhibition, A Divine Comedy Show, Chan's series of works All Dogs Go to Heaven is his attempt to take on the contemporary social issues of genetic engineering, as well as human behaviour. In this series, he depicts a set of dogs in an ethereal environment, some fashioned with halos. Each painting is accompanied with a companion piece of a robot dog that mirrors the 'real' animal. Chan's selection of the Doberman is one which is deliberate in that it's complicated ancestry and cosmetic alterations of ear and tail cropping upon birth calls into question our perceptions of beauty and whether what might seem logical today, will still remain so tomorrow.