Maya Gallery is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Singapore artist Jeffrey Wandly, at the SINGAPORE CONTEMPORARY, Booth A08, 21–24 January 2016, Suntec City. Entitled “Building Whisperer”, the exhibition features recent landscape paintings using ink and acrylic on canvas.

On the shifting sands of fast-paced metropolitan Singapore, Jeffrey Wandly is capturing a visual diary of the past filled with intimate portraits of the energy and vitality of the places we have inhabited. The buildings he paints mark the sense of place, time and heritage in Singapore’s collective memory and physical experience. 

Jeffrey is known for his distinctive style of fluid paint strokes which are created by pouring and swirling ink directly from the bottle. His affinity for music and nature enables him to find music in the environment, even in silence. Just like an orchestra score where the notes and lines all connect to form a composition, his paintings dance with their own frequency and energy, not unlike sound waves. “When I work it’s a spontaneity where I let gravity and a natural order flow. Using a brush seems forced, you indicate where each line goes.” Jeffrey prefers to let the medium take an organic, natural life of its own. When he paints, he is one with the medium, building structure and canvas. When he paints, he does not merely recollect a past memory; when he paints, he travels back to the building and retraces its stories as if he was actually physically present again.

It is thus not surprising that collectors of Jeffrey’s works have called him Building Whisperer because they connect to the conversations he has with buildings, and also able to recognise the soul of the buildings through his works.

While his first solo exhibition in Busan, Korea, explored the idea of man’s connection with buildings of worship across Asia, Building Whisperer, Jeffrey’s second solo show, hopes to show the connection Singaporeans, its visitors and residents, have with the built environment and in turn, how they contribute to an archive of memories in the iconic buildings around Singapore.

The above is an excerpt from the exhibition catalog by art writer Pamela Ng.