Past Solo Exhibition
Han Sai Por: Moving Forest 15.01.2014 — 22.02.2014
Information
Event has ended
15 January – 22 February 2014
About The Exhibition
“Moving Forest” presents a new body of print and paper works from the STPI residency of Han Sai Por, one of Asia’s leading sculptors and Singapore’s Cultural Medallion recipient.
One of Singapore’s pivotal modern art sculptors, Han has received critical attention for the rigour of her practice over the years. Nature has been her principal source, providing motifs and metaphors of forests; with plants, seeds and fruit that signify the vitality of life. Her sculptures are characterised by organic forms and understated elegance, often demonstrating a strong sense of symmetry as well as an intuitive understanding of material.
The motif and metaphor of the forest recurs throughout Han’s practice; sometimes emerging as a tropical rainforest as the ‘brain forest’, and more recently, as the ‘black forest’. Rainforest had emerged some 14 years earlier in Han’s solo exhibition, of the same name in 1994; recent exhibitions of Han’s works in Singapore and China have elaborated upon the forest with ideas of de-forestation, forest destruction, and extinction.
The artist engages paper and threads with the STPI team in ways not previously explored. Unlike the subtle and slab-like surfaces of her stone works, these pieces bear the crusty textures true to its pulp, along with vivid hues from high-grade colour pigments. Cotton threads evoke wind vortexes and paper pulp is used to construct hybrid pods and fruit; forest terrain of trees, valleys, rivers and mounds are interpreted with woodblock techniques and paper relief.
“Moving Forest” shares Han’s imaginative journey through a primal forest that pulsates with life and virility – propagating curious fruit and nurturing Nature’s vital elements of wind and water.
About the artist
Han Sai Por
Residencies in 2013, 2022, 2024
Han Sai Por (1943, born and based in Singapore) creates works that explore the delicate relationship between humankind, nature and the urban environment since the 1970s. Considered one of Singapore’s leading modern sculptors, the artist has developed a distinct visual language that is full of organic vitality. Her abstract forms beckon viewers to connect with the primordial, subliminal forces of nature in a constantly evolving cityscape.
Han is best known for her stone sculptures of natural motifs—particularly from tropical rainforests—that are characterised by fluid lines and continuous surfaces. From monumental monoliths to smaller-scale works, she painstakingly crafts each form by hand, holding an immense regard for the elemental quality of her material—a reverence stemming from a childhood spent in tropical nature. Since the 2010s, she has expanded her visual vocabulary to encompass a more unbridled expression of the forest, such as in Black Forest (2016).
Han received her art education at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, Singapore (1975–77) and the East Ham College of Art & Technology, London (1980), and obtained her BFA from Wolverhampton College of Art in 1983 and BA in Landscape Architecture from Lincoln University, Christchurch in 2008. Her work is held in major collections including the National Museum of China, Beijing; National Gallery Singapore, Singapore; and Singapore Art Museum, Singapore. For her contributions to the local art scene, Han was conferred the prestigious Cultural Medallion for Visual Arts in 1995.
Notable exhibitions include The Black Forest (2014), Jendela Visual Arts Space, Singapore; Pulp Friction (2001), Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; IMPRINTS on Singapore Art (1998), Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; and Four Dimensions (1993), National Museum of Singapore, Singapore. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including An Atlas of Mirrors (2016), 5th Singapore Biennale; XI Triennale (2005), 11th India Triennial, New Delhi; 4th Høljer International Sculpture Symposium (1996), Vejle; and Yashiro International Sculpture Symposium (1993).
Han has had three residencies at the STPI Workshop in 2013, 2022 and 2024; culminating in the exhibitions Moving Forest (2014), The Forest and Its Soul (2022) and Material Moves: Revisiting Print and Paper through Han Sai Por, Goh Beng Kwan, Ong Kim Seng and Chua Ek Kay (2025).
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