Author Archives: He Shuxin

About He Shuxin

I am a Cartoonist and a Art Education Provider in Singapore.

SuperPowers United Movement (SUM)

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SUM

Covid-19 has already put a toll to our life and the world we are living is now at a standstill.

We have seen people dying and struggling in order to survive in this drastic situation.

But still, there are a group of people like you and I, who has family and children, they are staying in the front line working tirelessly just to make sure we are safe.

And to keep them safe too and to make their effort worth while, the one thing we can do is to stay at home obediently.

What can we do as we are now stuck at home?

Instead of feeling useless, what can we do to be useful again?

Instead of being helpless, how do we help and support each other without leaving our house?

Use Our SuperPower

We all have SUPERPOWER!

And the source of this power lies in our beliefs.

When you believe in your beliefs, that is when you began to think creatively.

How do you use your talent to inspire and cheer one another at this time?

If you are an artist, your superpower is to inspire others with your creation…

If you are a teacher, your superpower is to nurture and bridge existing idea with new knowledge…

If you are a singer, your superpower is to connect peoples’ heart with your song…

What is your SuperPower?

We Can Do This

Post a drawing, painting, cartoon, comics, poem, a song, a tasty recipe, a special skill or do a video of yourself sharing/teaching what you are passionate about to the world.

Let us encourage and remind one another that we all have a role to play in this fight and we can do so by staying at home.

Connect to our SuperPower and make it Great Again!

Facebook

You can post your creation on your FaceBook and tag Arttention.

Include SUM in your creation so that we can identify your participation.

Instagram

You can post your creation on your Instagram and #superpowers_sum.

Include SUM  in your creation so that we can identify your participation.

 

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Artists and Empire art exhibition @ National Gallery

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This art exhibition, in short, is actually a collection of artworks done by artists (past and present) who have expressed their view during the ruling of the British empire. Singapore is one of the British colonies and therefore has a stake in this. However what caught my attention is not really the intention of the art pieces (whether it has a political intent) but rather the style that are expressed in some of the artworks.

The painting of Sir Stamford Raffles and Queen Elizerberth II are classical representation of a portrait painting done in oil paint. These are the norm we expected for a painting. What is uncommon is the painting below which has a touch of humorous art (like cartooning) but painted in a formal way. There is a story behind the handshake and it reminded me of a editorial cartoon except that it is missing a gag and punchline!

The painting of the bulldog below is done by Singaporean artist, Tang Da Wu. Most of us will see a bulldog…a dog of course, but this bulldog is actually a substitution of the British empire and it bleeded its influence on those who are under her…feet! There is an element of satirical cartoon in his artwork.

The drawing below serves as an educational material to inform the natives that punishment is equal under the law. This is obviously a comic strip or sequenctial art in my view. The question is, after looking at all the artworks, which one do you think is a serious form of art? Are there equality under the context of ‘serious’? Seriously…it all looked kind of serious to me:P

 

 

Character Art – Emily

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In this digital age, when one attempts to pick up a brush and paint, the feeling is like going backward in time to those days where artists can spend weeks and months doing a painting! You can spend all day working on a watercolour painting like any other art medium, but there is a limit to the number of layers you can apply with transparent watercolour. The more layer of paint you apply, the darker the colour becomes and the transparency decreases. You can rework and recorrect an acrylic or oil painting as many times as you like, but not really with watercolour. The challenge here is to acheive transparency and radiance in your painting, just like you want to taste a freshly baked cake straight from the oven! This medium requires our mind to be quick, accurate and be decisive when applying paint on paper!

The Future of Us

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I went to The Future of Us exhibition a week ago. It was promoted and shared on Facebook and there is a particular respond that prompted me to go book a ticket fast. Someone actually said,” The Future of Us shall stay but not the exhibition!” This statement pressed my urgency button and the next moment I was there all geared up ready to experience something great!

The Future of Us exhibition claimed multi sensory experience and in my understanding, it means it involves all our senses: see; touch; smell; hear; taste or more. For a while, I began to associate multi sensory experience to the likes of the Transformer Ride at the Universal Studio. The feeling is pretty awesome if you have taken that ride before. You experience 3-D imagery; movement; surround sound; vibration and even explosion in front of your face. That is the multi sensory experience that I know! Perhaps this is a bit off the map. Maybe something like the world you see in the movie Avatar would be equally impressive if our future environment looks like that. I wouldn’t mind if this is not the real deal.

The reality, however, is not anything like what I described but merely something similar to a polytechnic multimedia open house but just on a larger scale. The exhibition is more of a multimedia presentation at most combined with a touch of Science Center’s gadgets plus a few ‘high-tech’, mega size lookalike HDB flats that reminded you of visiting the HDB Hub! The content of the exhibition is not something alien or very futuristic that will send a ‘WoW’ here and there but gives you the impression that you don’t even have to step out of your house to work; play; learn; buy grocery or attend any function. Just imagine that our grandfathers who once lived in kampong and had embraced the ‘kampong spirit’, the future of us is the total opposite of this. Our future is ‘Ultimate Isolation’! The shopping malls are located not next, but within your apartment. You don’t have to attend a cooking class physically but your teacher will still mark your attendance because the projected hologram of yourself has attended the class. You can also experience the force of the Jedi! Raised your palm, the lights will turn on; palm facing downwards the light becomes dimmer; wave your hand in a circular motion and you hear classical music; do everything at combo and fast speed and you will see smoke coming out from the device (joking of course). These are just a few interesting example among others.

I may sound sarcastic but there is one that is worth praising. This is the best part. Nothing fanciful but plain swings for everyone to enjoy. That is the only place you see adults became a child and swinging happily away. There is a catch though. Everyone will need to swing as hard as they can to power up a generator that will puff out a foamy stuff! “ROAR” (sound) coming out from a constructed lion… Perhaps this is the multi sensory experience they are talking about!

The Future of Us exhibition is still worth a visit in my opinion. It is not all disappointment for me though it doesn’t live up to my expectation. I returned home feeling satisfied because I have gathered some potential ideas for my cartoon jokes. But seriously, is this the future for us? Do we really desire such a future? I don’t have the answer.

The Present Us

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The Future of Us

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