Primitive Learning – A Solo Exhibition by Filippo Sciascia | Written by Gatari Surya Kusuma | September 21st 2024 | at Nonfrasa Gallery Primitive Learning – A Solo Exhibition by Filippo Sciascia | Written by Gatari Surya Kusuma | September 21st 2024 | at Nonfrasa Gallery Primitive Learning – A Solo Exhibition by Filippo Sciascia | Written by Gatari Surya Kusuma | September 21st 2024 | at Nonfrasa Gallery Primitive Learning – A Solo Exhibition by Filippo Sciascia | Written by Gatari Surya Kusuma | September 21st 2024 | at Nonfrasa Gallery Primitive Learning – A Solo Exhibition by Filippo Sciascia | Written by Gatari Surya Kusuma | September 21st 2024 | at Nonfrasa Gallery Primitive Learning – A Solo Exhibition by Filippo Sciascia | Written by Gatari Surya Kusuma | September 21st 2024 | at Nonfrasa Gallery
“PRIMITIVE
LEARNING”
Solo Exhibition
Primitive Learning
Artist
Filippo Sciascia
Written by
Gatari Surya Kusuma
Primitive Learning: Accumulative Learning And The Transmittance Knowledge Of The Light
Primitive Learning series results from the Filippo Sciascia’s exploration of the intersection of science and art. Specifically, in this solo exhibition, Sciascia uses light as a metaphor and exploration tool to demonstrate how science and art can collaborate. While science provides rigid data about a particular phenomenon or event, art can provoke thought, engage in research, tell stories, and prompt reflection on the cumulative work of science. The exhibition, titled “Primitive Learning: Accumulative Learning And The Transmittance Knowledge Of The Light,” will showcase several works illustrating the relevance of light to our daily lives and how it builds upon the accumulated knowledge from before modern times. This body of work represents a successful fusion of science and art, using light as both a metaphor and a tool to show how art and science can aesthetically and functionally collaborate.
TABLET echoes an earlier institutional show, Lux Lumina (2010) at the NUS Museum, of videos, paintings and installations which depict the artist approaching a greenhouse emanating a radiant chamber of light. This embodies a similar truth-seeking sentiment, where light comes to signify humanity’s encounter with the divine. Extending from his fascination with archaeology and primitive societies, his drawing of a cave in Primitive Learning represents the genesis of humanity’s cognitive processes and evolution, wherein early geometric engravings became pivotal in the emergence of language and the shaping of perceptions. Highly conceptual, Sciascia’s thematic explorations extend beyond conventional mediums, incorporating organic materials like melatonin powder, amber pigment, and volcanic ash in his works to express the primordial. Throughout, Sciascia unequivocally asserts the interconnectedness between shelter, light and evolution.
RECENT
ARTWORK
Bridging the prehistoric, primitive and contemporary, the artist integrates his classical renaissance training with contemporary themes, painting photorealistic images of a woman lit solely by the glow of a phone screen. The tablet in the painting serves as the sole light source, highlighting our reliance on technology which depends heavily on electricity generated from natural resources like fossil fuels, wind, water, and the sun. These artworks aim to neutrally document our modern dependency on images and technology in an era of excessive production, reflecting our societal realities.
0. Primitive Learning
0. Primitive Learning
Oil on canvas, LED lights and wood
135 x 111 x 6 cm
2023
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
1. Primitive Morning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
2. Primitive Morning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
3. Primitive Morning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
4. Primitive Morning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
5. Cable Bacteria
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
6. Primitive Learning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
7. Primitive Learning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
8. Primitive Learning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
9. Primitive Learning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
10. Primitive Learning
INNATE
Yeo Workshop, Singapore
Aki Hassan, Filippo Sciascia, Fyerool Darma, Jonathan Nichols and Xue Mu
(15 September – 7 November 2021)
Innate is a dialogue in the gallery that takes the pulse with five cognitive artists – Aki Hassan, Fyerool Darma, Filippo Sciascia, Jonathan Nichols, and Xue Mu – who create across various mediums and who have maintained a continual process-driven studio practice throughout the pandemic times. In this pluralistic exhibition, they articulate their latest findings and ideas in gestural movements present in the works that indicate the unseen processes that made them possible, highlighting the relationship between their works and themselves, or between the marks on the surface and their minds and bodies as the driving force behind them – the most indelible artist’s signature.
With emphasis on the rendering as well as the rendered, the concepts presented here are mostly in monochrome or muted colours and executed in a wide range of scales and techniques. Aki Hassan’s sculptural ruminations of the state of existence extend from the walls to point towards a yet-to-be-seen conclusion; taking cues from poetry or verbal sketches of the artist’s thoughts, the twisting metalworks seem to be in perpetual state of reconfiguration in accordance to what makes them feel some form of comfort or safety. Fyerool Darma’s Sajak drawings are a continuous interrogation into language through mark-making. Through a unique treatment, Jonathan Nichols’ mannequin subjects are brought to life, challenging the traditional view of painting and portraiture as an act of mere depiction. The outward burst of charcoal tracks in Xue Mu’s large-scale Black Diamond drawings are literal traces of her energetic movements and Filippo Sciascia’s latest objects in his Primitive series examines drawing as an instinctive way of making sense of our world, from an artistic and a scientific stance.
