Fireside Chat: Addressing Materials
As the world continues to move towards an increasingly digital future, there has also been a resurgence of practices that dive deep in physical materiality, probing what it means to work with matter and to transform materials still to be uncovered. Bringing together two artists whose practices engage closely with painting and material culture, Khairulddin Wahab and Kelly Jin Mei, this conversation considers what it means to address materiality with depth and intention today.
Khairulddin Wahab | Artist
Khairulddin Wahab is a Singaporean artist who creates paintings that delve into the legacies of colonialism on the environment and societies in Southeast Asia. His work draws on narratives from environmental history and cultural geography to create visual tableaus that allude to our historico-political encounters with the natural world.
Kelly Jin Mei | Artist
Kelly Jin Mei is a visual artist working primarily in crochet and knit, both of which she picked up in 1997. After attaining her diploma in Apparel Design in 2011, she began her artistic practice in 2015 while living in Tokyo (Japan). From 2020, her focus shifted to her studio practice where she explores themes of identity, ownership and duality, often employing destruction as a secondary technique in three ways— disintegration, transformation and revocation.
Today, her work ranges from soft sculptures, textile hangings to multi-media installations. She has been active internationally with residencies such as La Wayaka Current (Calama, Chile), exhibitions such as the 18th International Triennial of Textile (Łódź, Poland) and #4 Objet Textile Biennale (Roubaix, France), as well as commissioned by brands like Bloomberg and GUCCI, for which she created their first in-store artwall display in South Asia Pacific. She has appeared in Singaporean campaigns promoting local art, been profiled by media such as Harper’s Bazaar (SG) and listed in Prestige (SG)’s 40 under 40.
Jin Mei’s art is featured in the Singaporean public primary school curriculum, and she has been invited to speak about her art both locally and abroad.