Credits MATTHEW BAX

IS TEXT CHEATING?

ARTWORK / SKETCHES
Matthew Bax
www.matthewbax.com

Design
Cameron Lofthouse & Monica Placella

Photography
Artwork: Soobin & Him
Portrait: John Laurie

PRINTED BY
Pixel Tech, Singapore

FOST Private Limited

65 Kim Yam Road
Singapore 239366
Telephone 65 6836 2661
Facsimile 65 6836 7904
E-mail info@fostgallery.com
Website www.fostgallery.com
Published in Singapore SELECTED PRESS
by FOST Private Limited, Singapore
Loh, Larry, “Matthew Bax – Interview”, www.CNNGo.com, 06 April 2010
www.fostgallery.com
Leong, Stanley & Ho, Pamela, “Matthew Bax – Interview”, Living Room, 938LIVE Radio, 06 April 2010
Asril, Celine, “Matthew Bax – Profile Interview”, TimeOut [Singapore], 05 April, 2010
© Matthew Bax 2010 Jufri, Zaki, “Matthew Bax – Profile Interview”, I-S Magazine, [Singapore], 05 April 2010
www.matthewbax.com Tan, Lisa Marie, “Matthew Bax - Profile Interview”, Edge [Singapore], 05 April 2010
Yeo, Christa, “Matthew Bax – My Weekend”, The Straits Times, [Singapore], 04, April 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book Lum, Magdalene, “Matthew Bax - Lifestyle”, The Straits Times [Singapore], 01 April 2010
Cheong, Judy, “Matthew Bax – Profile Interview”, Designaré, [Singapore], 01 April 2010
may be used or reproduced in any manner
Robert, Lorraine, “Matthew Bax – Profile Interview”, Singapore Tatler, [Singapore], 01 April 2010
whatsoever without written permission, Tan, Lauren, “Is Text Cheating?”, Prestige [Singapore], 01 April 2010
except in the case of brief quotations Ng, Leena, “Is Text Cheating?”, Wine & Dine [Singapore], 01 April 2010
embodied in critical articles or reviews.  Ye, Jacqueline, “Is Text Cheating?”, Quintessentially [Singapore], 01 April 2010
Chen, Min, “Is Text Cheating?”, Juice [Singapore], 01 April 2010
Jones, Joseph, “Is Text Cheating?”, Expat Living [Singapore], 01 April 2010
Published 01 April, 2010
Yeo, Christa, “The man with two aprons”, The Straits Times Life! [Singapore], 22 March 2010
Jufri, Zaki, “Scene stealer – required reading”, I-S Magazine, [Singapore], 24 April 2009
ISBN 978-981-08-5586-4 Natasya Abdul Aziz, Ferina “My life is an open book – Review”, Arts Beat [Singapore], 23 April 2009
Reyes, Kate, “Matthew Bax – Radio Interview”, Lush [Singapore], 17 April 2009
Eu, Geoffrey “Working with Art”, The Business Times [Singapore], 10 April 2009
Low, Fiona, “Matthew Bax – Profile”, The Straits Times [Singapore], 22 February 2009
Previous: De Rozario, Tania, “1x1x1 – Review”, Timeout [Singapore], 15 November 2008
Question in Abstraction (detail) Pearce, Grant “Artful Dodgers”, Art, GQ Magazine [Australia], Autumn 2007
Palmer, Sheridan, “A Bilateral Affair”, Australian Art Review [Australia], March-June 2007
2010
Grigg, Mik, “This Little Piggy Went To Market - Review”, The Sunday Age, [Australia], 04 March 2007
Mixed media on wood Gruber, Fiona, “Matthew Bax – Radio Interview” The Arts Show, PBS Radio, 22 February 2007
102 x 76 cm Bezar, Kate, “Matthew Bax – Profile Interview”, Dumbo feather, pass it on [Australia], 01 February 2007
“On the Tiles”, Metro, The Age [Australia], 12 March 2006
Backhouse, Megan, “Tiles - Review”, The Age [Australia], 10 March 2006
“Tiles - Review”, Art Almanac [Australia], 01 March 2006
Grigg, Mik, “Tiles - Review” The Sunday Age [Australia], 19 February 2006
Gruber, Fiona, “Tiles – Radio Interview” The Arts Show, PBS Radio [Australia], 19 February 2006
Warren, Alex, “Starters” Inside Out [Australia], 01 May 2006
“Tiles - Review”, Port Phillip Leader [Australia], 8 March 2006
Hegart, Khalil, “Bax to the wall”, Melbourne Magazine [Australia], 06 March 2005
Bellamy, Lisa, “Bax to Future Arts”, The Review, The Age [Australia], 19 February 2005
Kafcalodues, Phil, “Waiting for Something to Happen”, ABC Radio, [Australia], 11 February 2005
Backhouse, Megan, “Texture and bronze”, Around the Galleries, The Age [Australia], 26 February 2005
“If You Do one Thing Today”, The Age [Australia], 23 February 2005
The Arts Show, “Waiting For Something To Happen – Radio Interview”,
Triple RRR Radio [Australia], 16 February 2005
Gruber, Fiona, “Matthew Bax – Radio Interview”, The Arts Show, PBS Radio [Australia], 14 February 2005
“Matthew Bax – Profile Interview”, Joy FM Radio, 20 February 2005
“Rolletreppe – Review”, Szene [Germany], 01 April 2001
“Galerien in Aufbruck”, Szene [Germany], 01 April 2001
“Wall Studies”, Elle [Germany], 01 February 2001

31
MATTHEW BAX Is Text Cheating?

1974: Born in Adelaide, Australia

1977: Moved to Naracoorte, South-East of South Australia
1988: Winner St. Peter’s College Art Prize One of the first introductions to structured education a child encounters is
1990: Winner St. Peter’s College Art Prize writing exercises, where one is taught to trace the shape of a letter over
1990: Winner South Australian State Art Prize the dotted guide and then to practice by repeating the letter on the empty
1990: Selected SSABSA Exhibition line. Praise, stars, accolades are heaped onto tots with good penmanship.
1990: Selected SSABSA Permanent Collection And so it begins: to be successful you have to stay within the ‘lines’,
1989 - 1994: Casual Employment Christie’s, Adelaide
follow the path that has been set. God forbid the tail of your ‘q’ strays
1990 - 1994: Gallery Assistant - Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
1991 - 1994: Completes a Bachelor of Commerce Degree at Flinders University willy nilly two lines below.
1989 - 1992: Painting in Melbourne
1998: Moves to Germany, establishes Munich studio That Matthew Bax, a tax accountant in a previous incarnation, founded
2001: Returns to Melbourne, establishes Richmond studio critically acclaimed bars in Melbourne and Singapore and is a successful
2007: Painting in München & Melbourne
artist in three continents, is paid testament that straying is a good thing,
2008: Painting in Istanbul & New York
2008: Establishes Singapore Studio
if not even better.
2009: Commences Masters of Fine Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
This is the second series of works Bax has created since relocating to
Singapore 18 months ago. His first titled My Life is an Open Book was also
SOLO EXHIBITIONS bibliophilic in theme. Text in art no doubt blurs the line between graphic
design and fine art. However approach Bax’s works from a purely aesthetic
2010: Hell Hyper Inflation, ICA Gallery, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
2010: Is Text Cheating?, FOST Gallery, Singapore point of view and you experience the joy of spontaneous brushwork and
2009: My Life is an Open Book, FOST Gallery, Singapore freedom of random splatters reminiscent of action paintings. Read the
2007: This Little Piggy Went to Market, Uber Gallery, Melbourne, Australia text and you experience the wit of the artist, who simultaneously probes,
2006: Tiles, Uber Gallery, Melbourne, Australia questions and challenges the status quo.
2005: Waiting for Something to Happen, Uber Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2003: Un-Titled, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
And while the imagery of lined exercise books and index cards is somewhat
2003: Madrid Wall Studies, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München, Germany
2002: Sec. 101c, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München, Germany old school, the tongue-in-cheek title is a decidedly contemporary reference
2001: Rolltreppe, NEU Ausstellungsraum, Hamburg, Germany to modern day communication. The question posed in the title would not have
2001: España, Cornelia von Wagenheim, Frankfurt, Germany made much sense even a short a time as a decade ago. With text messaging,
2000: Recent Paintings, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München, Germany flirting need no longer be conducted face to face, instead feelings can be
1999: Subway, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München, Germany
instantaneously conveyed (or masked) with seemingly harmless emoticons,
expressions made up of punctuation marks and indecipherable unless read
GROUP EXHIBITIONS sideways. And even if physical boundaries may never be crossed, the same
cannot be said for emotional ones.
2010: Don’t Forget to Die!, The Gallery, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
2010: Pameran Poskad, Keyakismos, House, Singapore Blurred boundaries, crooked lines and words askew – that is Life.
2010: Object, Space, Praxis Space, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
2009: Past Perfect, FOST Gallery, Singapore
2009: North–South, Gasworks, Melbourne, Australia
2008: 1x1x1, FOST Gallery, Singapore, Singapore Stephanie Fong
2007: Southside Arts Project, Treasury, Melbourne, Australia Director
2006: Melbourne Art Fair, Uber Gallery, Melbourne, Australia FOST Gallery, Singapore
2005: Discovery, Gasworks, Melbourne, Australia
2004: Paintings, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2003: Melbourne Art Fair, Dickerson Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2001: Weis, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München, Germany
1999: Mut Zur Farbe: Gelb, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München Germany
1999: Mut Zur Farbe: Rot, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München Germany
1999: Mut Zur Farbe: Blau, Marquardt Ausstellungen, München Germany

30 03
And As It Goes ...

... Without Saying

Beginnings are often fraught with anxiety and dread. Anxious that what
follows must fulfil that incipient vision of what-it-should-be. Dreadful
that it nearly always isn’t so. Beginnings are also transitory states1,
in the sense that what gets first airing must often be re-examined and
re-appraised in light of what follows. And yet, the kernel of what is to
follow must already be contained in that first note ... first line ... first
intonation ... first mark. Or as what John Sallis had remarked in The Verge
of Philosophy: “In order to begin, one must somehow know what, on the other
hand, one cannot, as one begins, yet know.”

In encountering a blank canvas; a clean sheaf of paper; a fresh screen; or a

silent audience, the idea of what is to be communicated is held in place by
threads of possibility. It gradually takes on a tangible form – of language;
of composition; of passage; of materiality. And yet, these cumulative forms
are, at best, tangible interpretations and not the idea2. And yet, again,
these (tangible) forms must also emanate from the same source which gave
rise to that (intangible) idea. In so many other words, it is an attempt to
say, the unsayable; speak, the unspeakable; to write, to draw, to paint, to
make sense of the un-sensible.

“And yet – if bordering on the unimaginable – beginnings are made.” - John

Sallis, The Verge of Philosophy

... In Between Things

And as sense is being made, the idea becomes increasingly and seemingly
tangible. But never to the point of being an actual thing, but akin to a
shape-shifting entity which traces out the boundaries and limits of what
it is – and delimiting what it is not, by default. It is, perhaps, this
perennial confusion of what-it-is-not for what-it-is which results in a
misplaced confidence in identifying or representing ideas. That confidence
arises from a need to be certain – of belief; of naming – as boundaries
shift and ambiguities mount.

If ceci n’est pas une pipe, then it has to be something else. It must be
– as it cannot be just not, or non-sense. It is, perhaps, also a habit of
thought which seeks the tangible, grasps the recognisable, and discerns the
true. It is a habit which builds a sense of exclusion – albeit, momentarily
before becoming entrenched as a habit of thought – for the sake of knowing
– or believing.

Such confidence, being exclusive, would necessarily belie the primacy of

revisions, rejections and erasures3. It is only by a constant turning and
re-turning of frames of reference that ideas become sensible. It is not so
much a search for that perfect sense, or representation, but one of mapping
the (un-sensible) idea by delineating its multitude of shadows, traces,
echoes which must necessarily exists in between (tangible) things.

04
 ...

With the trace, one discerns but is never certain. With the echo, one hears
but cannot be sure of its trajectory or source. With shadows, one sees but
incompletely. These are anxious modes of discernment which, not so much
as question the very basis of knowing but, point to the implausibility
of certitude. It is not an abdication of saying what it is but rather an
acknowledgement of what it is not yet could be.

The not-yet-could-be thing becomes like a stain4 : suggestive yet inconclusive;

visible yet tentative; inscribed yet unnameable; is yet not. It is perhaps
as stains that we can better understand thoughts or ideas – as permeating,
emerging, fading, accidental; or otherwise. As indelible not-things. And as
things go, they can only be said – drawn, or painted, or ... – in order to
make sense, yet again.

Lawrence Chin

1. When I was first introduced to Matthew 3. The tentativeness of inscribing one’s

Bax’s work, I was intrigued. It was plainly thoughts is carried over into the deliberate
evident that Bax had tremendous store of use of chalk marks in a number of Bax’s new
commitment to the painted medium, even when works. These marks, verging on the playful,
we think of painting as somehow “historical”. bring to mind the obvious reference to
When later introduced to Bax and speaking formative early childhood years, which are
with him about his ideas in his work, I was often times remembered in terms of emotional
more than intrigued. It came across as a states rather than cognitive understanding.
deep-seated search for a sense of rootedness The displacement and uncertain relationship
in our fragmentary world. When I was first between memory, emotion and thought become
approached to write for this exhibition, I yet another indication of why we can never be
was hesitant but relented as I thought I had sure of what we think we know.
to give form to what I had experienced in
coming into contact with Bax – his work and 4. As an amorphous entity, what we know or
his ideas. see or hear is then constantly revised, not
for want of a definite meaning, but in concert
2. Bax’s current series extends some of his with the acceptance that we can only know
earlier concerns found in My Life is an imperfectly. Bax exemplifies this approach in
Open Book, which is driven by his continual his visual thoughts.
dialogue with the need to understanding life
and its myriad transformations. It is an
attempt to make sense of the world around,
much like jotting down lists and thoughts
onto pages or cards, often tinged with the
Y personal hope that such acts of observation
2010 and recoding could somehow suffice in drawing
Mixed media on wood out the essence and mystery of living. Yet
the vigorous attempts at whiting out the
30 x 60 cm
text, while leaving them marginally legible,
serve as a reminder of the tension between
Right: the tenuousness and tenacity of our meaning-
Is It? (detail) making rituals or habits.
2009
Mixed media on wood
152 x 122 cm

28 05
Right:
Statement of Character
2010
Mixed media on wood
102 x 76 cm

Time to Spare?
2010
Mixed media on wood
30 x 60 cm

06 27
Statement in Progress
2010
Mixed media on wood
30 x 60 cm

26
Statement in Abstraction
2010
Mixed media on wood
30 x 60 cm

Left:
Statement in Medium (detail)
2010
Mixed media on wood
102 x 76 cm

25
F is for...
2010
Mixed media on wood
122 x 153 cm

Left:
E is for... (detail)
2009
Mixed media on wood
122 x 153 cm

09
Ex Libris I
2010
T
Mixed media on wood
2010
21 x 14 x 5 cm each (diptych)
Mixed media on wood
30 x 30 cm

Left:
T is for... (detail)
2009
Mixed media on wood
122 x 153 cm

10 23
Ex Libris II
2010
Mixed media on wood
21 x 14 x 5 cm each (diptych)

Overleaf:
H is for... (detail)
2009
Mixed media on wood
122 x 153 cm

11
Q is for...
2010
Mixed media on wood
76 x 102 cm

Right:
Statement in Time II
2010
Mixed media on wood
102 x 76 cm

20
P is for... M is for...
2010 2010
Mixed media on wood Mixed media on wood
76 x 102 cm 76 x 102 cm

Right: Left:
Statement in Time I I is for... (detail)
2010 2009
Mixed media on wood Mixed media on wood
153 x 122 cm 122 x 153 cm

18 15
N is for... O is for...
2010 2010
Mixed media on wood Mixed media on wood
76 x 102 cm 76 x 102 cm

16 17