Asia Gallery

Mersuka Dopazo

MADRID’S RENOWNED PAINTER INSPIRED BY LIFE IN ASIA

With a career spanning 20 years, and multiple international exhibitions of her work having taken place in Europe’s famed art capitals, Mersuka Dopazo lives up to her reputation as a renegade artist somewhat, inspired by the spontaneity of day-to-day life. Bringing her four sons and architect husband to Bali for a year of family adventure, she spent the summer turning an already stunning contemporary villa into an art-filled world of whimsy and color. Working with oils, acrylics, pencil, and pastels, Dopazo has no hesitation to also use pieces of wood, manuscripts, leaves – bits and pieces from nature she finds on her travels – and incorporate them into portraits, seascapes and figurative works mostly done in large formats. Originally trained in law, her aptitude for sketching and painting, as well as a vivid imagination and inborn drive to experiment, Dopazo takes Asia by storm with the same spontaneous freedom that guides her innovative spirit. www.sukyf.com

CELEBRATE THE CREATIVITY OF SINGAPORE SOCIETY THROUGH TIME IN THE FOUR SINGAPORE LIVING GALLERIES, EACH WITH A LIFESTYLE THEME CLOSE TO THE HEARTS OF SINGAPOREANS.

Photography operates at the junction between personal memory and social history. Peer into 100 years of history of the Singaporean family through family portraits, albums and collection of old photographs. This gallery portray glimpses of local life through photographic images and precious artefacts.

Examine the various family themesand social issues that are showcased through the six enlarged archival photographs. Listen to recollections of families’ past presented via interactive audio-visual LCD screens. For photo-enthusiasts, be sure to look at the earliest photographic image of Singapore, Daguerreotype of Singapore Town, produced just five years after the invention of the daguerreotype photographic process in 1839. www.nationalmuseum.sg

Now at the Met Bernini: Sculpting in Clay

Shown together for the first time, approximately 40 terracotta models and 30 drawings will offer viewers a more profound insight into Bernini’s dazzling creative mind, and his impact on the fabric of Baroque Rome. Sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 – 1680) used these models to help him visualize the life-size or colossal marbles for which he is legendary. They preserve the first traces of Bernini’s fervid imagination and unique creative process that evolved into some of the most famous and spectacular statuary in Rome, including the fountains in the Piazza Navona. At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA through 2012. www.metmuseum.org