The Gold of the Tigers

Series of large scale paintings created by Denise Jambore.

(Oil on canvas, Singapore, 2023)

                                                                                                             Artist statement

"The Gold of the Tigers"  is a series of large scale paintings aiming at exploring the beauty of remembering one's past, be it personal or a nation's common lane. Departing from a pivotal work belonging to the collection of the National Gallery of Singapore, the Boschbrand or Forest Fire (1849) by Indonesian artist Raden Saleh, this series of paintings follows the artist's aristocratic Asian upbringing and his European art education as well as the symbolism behind this type of relation in contemporary society.

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Therefore, it is not only a poetically intriguing theme but it also opens the fascinating conversation about what constitutes our understanding of permanent notions such as power, possession and beauty. 

Working in dialogue with understanding the human geography and the historical context where the works of this new series were born, the theme explores the idea of being foreign in a space and a certain time, of dislocation and otherness, while also finding oneself through discovering some of the local personalities that constitute models in a field or another.                                                                                                                                                                                *

This new body of works looks back at the history of Asian aristocracy and the elite in relation to the evolution of different aesthetic eras. It is a contemporary approach to portraiture that explores our changing modernized perception of identity in relation to location and challenge preconceptions of what or who belongs in a given place or time. 

The painting manner is reminiscent of old masters' technique and it visually introduces the concept of memory as a personal approach to understanding history. While the figurative such as the portraits speaks directly to the art of capturing the essence of the sitter and placing it in a rather abstract context. The subjects are set in spaces that do not bear any clear coordinates but somehow share the continuity with their past. 

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