Footnotes

文森·豪興頓 未命名(仕女與花束) 油彩木板

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ROSALIND RATNAM

Provenance:
Acquired directly from the artist
Estate of Rosalind Ratnam


Heralded as 'the artist that fell through the gaps', Vincent Hoisington was a key figure in the Singaporean art community during the country's critical nation-building years. Vincent Hoisington was born in Singapore in 1924 and was a major force in the Singapore art scene in the 1960s and until his untimely death in 1972 at the young age of 48. Hoisington coached students at Raffles Girls' Secondary School and St Theresa Convent for 'O' level art and taught at the YMCA. His wife Agnes was the sister of the Singapore war heroine, Elizabeth Choy.

In Hoisington's aluminium relief work, Passacaglia, an aluminium sheet is shaped into a highly textured abstract composition. The artist was able to reflect the rapid processes of industrialisation and urbanisation which Singapore was going through upon the surface of his 'canvas'. The luminous qualities of the deep emerald and sapphire tones, suggestive of flora and fauna, are presented with the industrial material of aluminium in a manner that dissolves all tension between the two seemingly incompatible forces. The integration of the two forces – nature and the man-made – presented by Hoisington echoes their seamless coexistence in the country of Singapore in a time of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation.

Although he was recognised by his peers as the pioneer of aluminium art in Singapore, Hoisington was also a painter. Hoisington's murals decorated the walls of buildings across Singapore, namely the Raffles Hotel, Singapore Polytechnic and Cathay Building. The paintings Untitled and Untitled (Lady in Blue with Bouquet) were executed on board, and the artist painted with thin glazes of oil to compose abstract scenes of fantastical capes. Using the same jewel-like tones, Hoisington created compositions that are atmospheric yet distinctive in style, offering an escape for his viewers into the realm of the imagined.

Hoisington and his oeuvre had enchanted and fascinated many back at the time, and amidst the increasing attention that is being paid to the pioneering Nanyang artists, Hoisington is a talent starting to be re-discovered again.