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Artist Biography
Desmond Mah is a Singapore-born, Chinese-Australian, early-career artist who lives and works in Boorloo (Perth, Western Australia) on the unceded land of the Wadjak boodjar. He graduated from Loughborough University in the UK with a BA (Hons) in Painting. He worked in art education before emerging as an artist in 2016. Mah's childhood experiences in Singapore, where he was exposed to Taoist temple culture through his maternal grandmother, and that this early exposure has had an impact on his art. The temple art that features the monstrous, the grotesque and the macabre, fascinates him. He migrated to Perth in the late 1980s with his father and confronted challenges as an Asian minority in a culturally different environment. These experiences and challenges not only have influenced Mah's perspective and creative vision, equally prepared him to overcome fear. Mah has received accolades for his paintings from various art prizes, including the E.SUN Bank Special Selection prize (Taiwan, 2022) and the Southern Buoy Studios Portrait Prize (Australia, 2021). He has exhibited in solo and group shows in Perth, Sydney and Beijing. He has also participated in residencies such as the Red Gate Residency (Beijing, 2018) where he was mentored by contemporary performance artist, He Yunchang (何云昌), studying the body as a medium. Mah will be participating in Fremantle Arts Centre Studio Program for 6 months in late 2023. Furthermore, he has received various grants and commissions, and has a work in the private collection of Judith Neilson. He is currently self-represented. Artist Statement Desmond Mah explores cultural hybridity and fluid identity through his unique paintings of the body. He is a second-generation Australian and third-generation Singaporean with roots in possible Hui (回族, Hui tribe, China) and Kinmen (金門縣, Kinmen Islands, Taiwan) ancestry. Mah's cultural background is a mix of various cultural influences and he identifies himself as a sojourner who temporarily resides in a place. His family history and evolving cultural identity make it challenging for him to fit into a rigid mould of identity. Mah is interested in the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) concept as a way to both claim control over the body and to question issues of cultural identity, by shaping own experiences and environments. He views the body and cultural identity as " DIY kits" that he can adopt and modify to reflect his evolving sense of self. The body becomes independent, self-published, self-made and self-distributed. Moving away from traditional painting surfaces, Mah hand-duplicates the body directly using an experimental painting technique, creating hybrid forms that blur the lines between painting and sculpture, built from layers of synthetic polymer. These DIY bodies incorporate technology, such as mechanisms and sensors, to create an interactive experience for the viewer. He also integrates texts and images from his memories into his DIY representations, further adding to the unique DIY nature of these automated paintings. Mah's work invites the audience to consider the themes of cultural hybridity and fluid identity, and how they can be shaped and adapted over time. By embracing a DIY approach to identity, he advocates for a more fluid and inclusive understanding of cultural identity. Through his paintings of the body, he encourages the audience to engage with these themes and broaden their perspectives. . |
A Kampong village dwelling,
Kampong Bahru, Singapore, 1970s. Mah's childhood residence. Photo: nas.gov.sg 
Judith Neilson, White Rabbit Gallery
(Dec 2017). |