Biography

Desmond Mah / 马福民 (b. 1974, Singapore; Singaporean-Australian, based in Boorloo/Perth) is painter, whose practice examines structures of authority, hierarchy, and social control through the Eurocentric visual language of colonial imagery, that shaped both colonial and postcolonial narratives. A Singaporean-Australian migrant, Mah was educated in postcolonial Singapore through curricula informed by British historiography, and later encountered racialised imagery in Western Australia. These lived experiences motivate his attention to how colonial visual culture persists, mutates, and continues to organise collective perception. Working with painting, a visual form historically used to depict and legitimise power, he materially reworks these images as interventions. 

His line-based painting method operates both formally and psychologically: repetitive marks regulate his ADHD attention while recalling sewing and textile construction, drawn from memories of his mother’s labour as a seamstress. These tactile, thread-like paint lines replace traditional brushstrokes, functioning as a form of painterly mending. The marks act as both construction and deconstruction to rework the image. The lines are visible interventions to undermine Eurocentric constructs. The colonial image is treated as a worn and contingent structure. His mending process reverses, complicates, challenges, insults, infiltrates, and troubles the façade, opening it to revision.

Beginning his practice later than most and living with ADHD, Mah faced limited exhibiting opportunities and scarce accessible curatorial support in Western Australia. To navigate these barriers, he follows an old Chinese aphorism: build the roads first, then move. This principle has shaped his role as artist-curator, allowing him to work outside gatekeeping structures and turn limitation into innovation. He built platforms advocating for peers and himself. Unlike traditional curators, his approach is grounded in his perspective as a painter. These initiatives have received recognition and funding from the Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport (DCITS, WA).

Mah earned a BA (Hons) in Painting from Loughborough University, UK (1998), supported by a Lee Foundation (Singapore) scholarship, and a diploma from LaSalle College of the Arts, Singapore (1997). Before beginning his practice in 2017, he worked in art education and horticulture. Of Hainanese, Kinmen, and Singaporean descent, Mah migrated to Australia as a teenager during a period of heightened hostility towards the Asian diaspora in Boorloo.

His prize achievements include the E.SUN Bank Special Selection Prize (Taiwan, 2022) and the Southern Buoy Studios Portrait Prize (Australia, 2021). He has participated in numerous residencies, commissions, and exhibitions, notably the Fremantle Arts Centre Studio Program (2023) and two Red Gate Residencies (Beijing, 2018). His works are held in notable collections, with exhibition highlights including 4th edition ART SG (Singapore, 2026), Inside-Out Art Museum (Beijing, 2025), and the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial at Mossenson Galleries (Australia, 2024).

A Kampong village dwelling,
Kampong Bahru, Singapore, 1970s.
Mah's childhood experience.
Photo: nas.gov.sg

6 months' studio residency with Fremantle Arts Centre, Moores
Studio Space (2023)

Special Selection Award,
E.SUN Bank Awards 3rd Edition,
Taipei (Dec 2022)