ZHAO RENHUI (Singaporean, B. 1983)

Zhao’s Changi, Singapore, Possibly 1970s (Lot 390) is far from a conventional landscape painting or photograph. With columns of murky smoke ascending in the background, human figures in the photograph are exploring a dune, which seems natural but is actually man-made with the imported sands, a part of Singapore’s land reclamation of the sea. Originally a tropical island, Singapore has expanded 35% from its original size but has all different kinds of flora and fauna all over the island.

In Changi, Singapore, Possibly 1970s, part of his As We Walked on Water series, Zhao depicts human as tiny creatures traipsing through the vast sand hill they invented and created. Zhao does not seek to capture the typical landscape scenes of Singapore such as urban gardens to explain the complicated relationship between man and nature, but rather takes a documentary approach to human’s creation of landscape.