Tang Dawu (b 1943, Singapore) stands as a pivotal figure of Asian contemporary art and a veritable icon in the development of performance art in Singapore. Founder of The Artists’ Village (initiated in 1988), Tang has been mythologized for his role in shaping notions of the artist collective and entrenching this as part of the ecology and character of contemporary art practices in Singapore.

Whilst the Artists’ Village (TAV) was not the first artist-run space, it was certainly the first significant artist commune in Singapore, and the precursor of numerous artist-run spaces and residences in Singapore today. The TAV, then helmed by Tang, posed an alternative (and a new attitude) for a generation accustomed to celebrating the artist as a somewhat solitary figure not given to shared quarters or collective success. TAV’s foreseeable eviction from their premises in 1990, the infamous ‘clamp-down’ on performance art in Singapore and a subsequent fallow period for TAV did not curb burgeoning interest in Tang’s individual, independent practice. His performances were characterised by a sharp sensitivity to social and environmental concerns – addressing issues such as the unabated Asian consumption of endangered animal parts for cosmetic and other indefensible reasons. In 1999, Tang received one of the most coveted accolades for a contemporary artist in Asia – the Fukuoka Asian Art Award.

The idealism engendered by Tang, and which so powerfully fuelled TAV, is evident in Tang’s artistic oeuvre. It saturates the body of works broadly referred to as the Heroes, Islanders series. His subjects are not famous figures. Most are anonymous and could be described as archetypes – the stoic street vendor, the samsui woman, the working class boy, the ingenue.
Tang has pointed out certain characteristics that have moved him – the suggestion of fortitude, tenacity, innocence, un-self consciousness Implicitly, the gulf between the unassuming ‘salt-of-the-earth’ folk and the more sophisticated urbanite emerges conspicuously.

“..[There were these] old ladies or men that picked up cardboard, selling newspapers or sometimes things that were illegal. There was something about them that moved me....”
- Tang Dawu (interview with the writer, Jan 2005).

Whilst these portraits can be read as visual anthems to the working-class, rendering them with dignity (sometimes tinged with nostalgia and romanticism), Tang navigates new ground by constituting their identities through affiliations to certain localities in Singapore. His archetype is invested with the characteristics of certain locales on the island – a rare instance in which a Singapore artist proposes such affinities.

Tang’s references recall some of the most impassioned discussions in local discourse - on ethnic enclaves, on ‘clan’ loyalties or badges of kinships that were for a time deemed to be rooted in certain locales on the island. The implications of public housing in the history of Singapore’s urban development policies have also been also broached by Tang.

“...Then people were re-settled into HDB housing. There was this feeling that these people would ‘die off’ after resettling them...I felt very much for them...It [the Heroes, Islanders series] started off with intuition. I was watching people. I like the man on the street. I saw someone at Northpoint cinema, smoking his cigarette.

I slowly realised my intentions had to do with my interest in people and their relationships with certain places...People of the Land, with strong relationships to particular locations or sites in Singapore....there’s the ‘Hougang’ people. There is a certain identity about people who live or come from Hougang....I would sit at the kopitiams (coffeeshops), listening to conversations. There seemed to be a ‘Hougang’ character or identity..”
- Tang Dawu (ibid)

Whilst the set of works outlined above conveys the charismatic presence of the working-class, ‘man-on-the-street’, suggesting their heroic stature for Tang, another distinct set in Tang’s portrait series register a distinct shift in rhythm and intent.

In this other set, Tang evokes particular personalities, friends and acquaintances, sometimes with humour and at other times with pointed ambivalence. This ‘set’ includes portraits of Tang’s late mother and close friends like the celebrated Singapore art historian and critic, TK Sabapathy. His is a composite portrait – comprising not just TK’s more instantly recognisable features, but also those of a Singapore judge – alluding to Sabapathy’s identity as adjudicator in the art circuit. Tang is less affectionate in other instances where he satirizes or puts forward portraits of the Head of NTUU or NACC – imaginary organisations that have been amended (only just) from the acronyms of well- known bodies or institutions in local circles.

The Heroes, Islanders series is not the first time that Tang has worked with Chinese ink on paper. Tang’s oeuvre over the years has encompassed performances, drawings & ink paintings. In the latter, he has demonstrated an almost unerring command of formalistic and aesthetic principles and applications. Tang’s alliance with performance has, not unexpectedly, spilt over and infected his working processes for this series. A performative element is evident – Tang reveals that ‘few brushes were used’ and that instead, more unorthodox implements, ‘spoons to scoop the ink, rags, sponges’ were employed on these large handmade sheets to create the features of his subjects. First soaked and dampened, these cotton sheets, following Tang’s application of Chinese ink, are then laid flat to dry out. Black ink is allowed to travel across the damp paper, bleed or trail in certain directions - forming hints of a nose, forehead, the outlines of a chin and so forth. Whilst these accidental, spontaneous ‘bleeds’ or infusions never slip into the murky depths of abstract Rorschach blobs, they sometimes produce startling results – carrying marvellous suggestive and evocative effects.

Tang regards these portraits as exercises to capture the elusive factor that defines a personality or figure - subscribing to the principle that one’s beliefs, allies and fallibilities (basically, ‘life’) - show up in our faces. This portrait project started in 2003, and over 150 works have been produced to date. This entire body of portraits possesses a kind of compulsive, obsessive quality (as with absorptions that are relentlessly sustained and intensified over a period of time). They are also powerful, mesmerising, and when seen together, disclose the kind of discipline, persistence and ferocity of commitment that underlies Tang’s idealism.