Painting Itself/绘画本身 is an exhibition of five painters from Hong Kong, Malaysia, London, Shanghai and Singapore. The exhibition explores a new horizontal culture in painting, where fundamental ideas about its history and vitality—long the influence of European and American values—are being reshaped in East and Southeast Asia.
A common understanding is that painters look for the ‘face’ of their work, that aspect of a painting that looks back at them. Each of the artists in the exhibition takes on this idea—they lean into the mood and character of their own painting, with its inner constraints and struggles. By introducing insightful and complex new painting practices and attitudes, Painting Itself/绘画本身 prompts us to reflect on how contemporary painting works to interlink and traverse geography and time, re-positioning the western art economy through an Asian lens.
About the artists
Jon Chan (born 1982, Singapore) is a Singapore-based artist who works primarily in painting. He has exhibited regularly in solo and group exhibitions in Southeast Asia over the last decade, including It’s Complicated Somehow, The Substation, Singapore (2020); Teachings from His Majesty the King, Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Center, Bangkok (2017); and Modern Love, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore (2014). Chan graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in 2008 from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, where he currently teaches. In 2023 he was awarded the prestigious IMPART Art Prize for emerging artists.
Chan is represented by FOST Gallery, Singapore.
Un Cheng (born 1995, Hong Kong) is a painter based in Hong Kong. Since graduating from Hong Kong Baptist University with a BA (Hons) Visual Arts in 2017, she has held regular solo exhibitions and participated in Art Basel Hong Kong, West Bund Art and Design, Shanghai, and Frieze London. Her work recently entered the permanent collection of Vancouver Art Gallery, part of the landmark donation of Art Continuum Hong Kong (ACHK) and her first artist monograph Now, and Then? was published in 2025. Cheng undertook a Gil Artist Residency in Iceland in 2018.
Cheng is represented by Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong.
Chris Huen Sin-Kan (born 1991, Hong Kong) graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2013 and has undertaken residencies in London, where he is now based. Huen has exhibited widely since 2010, including I Do Nothing Every Day, Centre of International Contemporary Art, Vancouver (2024); Next Door, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2023); Chris Huen Sin-Kan: Artist-in-Residence, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2022); Thailand Biennale, Korat (2021); Rajamangala University of Technology Isan, Thailand (2022); and Biennial of Painting: Inner Spaces, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Belgium (2020). His works are held in the collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco; and Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing.
Huen is represented by Ota Fine Arts and Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong.
Noor Mahnun (born Kelantan, Malaysia 1964) studied architecture in the United States before completing a Master of Fine Art at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig, Germany in 1996. Living in Berlin from 1984 to 1997, she exhibited in Florence and throughout Germany before returning to Malaysia in the late 1990s where she has exhibited extensively since. Anum has undertaken residencies at Rimbun Dhan (Kuala Lumpur) and the Gunnery Studios (Sydney). She has been awarded a scholarship from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a senior fellowship from the Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectuals program. Her recent exhibitions include the major solo exhibition Anum, Yeo Workshop, Singapore (2025), participation at Art Dubai and Frieze, Seoul (2024) and Asia Now, Paris (2025). Anum’s work is held in numerous international collections.
Anum is represented by Yeo Workshop, Singapore.
Tang Dixin (born 1982, Hangzhou, China) is based in Shanghai and works mostly in painting and performance. He is one of the ‘80-hou’ artists, a Chinese term for those born during the 1980s. Tang graduated from Shanghai Normal University in 2005. Since 2007, he has exhibited extensively in group exhibitions, including Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, M+, Hong Kong (2025); Pictures of the Post-80s Generation—Generational Leap, TANK Shanghai, Shanghai (2024); Yokohama Triennale: AFTERGLOW (2020); and 10th Gwangju Biennale: Burning Down the House (2014). Tang undertook a residency at Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing in 2018. His works are held in several collections, including Points Center for Contemporary Art, London; TANK Shanghai, Shanghai; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; and Troy House Art Foundation, London.
Tang is represented by Ota Fine Arts and Vitamin Creative Space, Beijing.
About the curator
Artist and curator Jonathan Nichols (born 1956, Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country/Canberra) is based in Naarm/Melbourne and Garramilla/Darwin. Following a year-long residency in Kuala Lumpur in 2012–13, he lived and worked in Singapore for six years.
Nichols has curated several thematic group exhibitions for public galleries. He co-founded Melbourne artist-run galleries Stripp, Lovers and The Green Door between 1996 and 2014, and founded the online publishing journal, Stamm, in 2012. In 2022, he published a book of interviews titled Walking with ghosts: six conversations about painting. The book follows Nichols’ biographical pathway through the art world since the 1990s and pursues long-held artist friendships to explore a ‘horizontal culture’ of painting.
Nichols began painting in the early 1990s after studying sculpture at the Australian National University, Canberra and the University of NSW, Sydney. In 2023, he completed a PhD at the VCA, University of Melbourne. Nichols has exhibited widely since the early 1990s.
Nichols is represented by Yeo Workshop, Singapore.
