Holding (Space) assembles the work of six artists: Aki Hassan, Justin Loke (Vertical Submarine), Marcin Dudek, Maryanto, Noor Mahnun, and Xue Mu. Across drawing, painting, sculpture, mixed media and installation, these artists interrogate systems, both seen and unseen, that shape contemporary existence. Scraping away at the veneers of dominant frameworks, they expose the fractures within and reimagine new ways of inhabiting these gaps. Meaning, place, and the self are continually renegotiated in these works. In each artist’s hands, material, gesture, and gaze become quiet but powerful tools to unravel and reconstruct the notions of support, kinship, connection, and resistance.

Tracing the intimate pulse of lived memory, Aki Hassan (b. 1995, Singapore) layers handwritten letters in powder pigment across wooden panels. Words are written, rubbed away, and re‑inscribed until they seep into the grain, turning language itself into a slow heartbeat of shared experience. First shown at Liste Art Fair Basel earlier this year, these drawings were conceived as love letters during a tumultuous time for the queer and trans communities. They hold space for tenderness and charged emotions, honouring the kinships that sustain a life.

Justin Loke (Vertical Submarine) (b. 1979, Singapore) presents Unarmed chairs. Drawing from Goya’s painting of war as a public spectacle, Loke reflects on how violence is consumed today—filtered through screens, and re-mediated from the comfort of an armchair. In this distanced spectatorship, even the uncanny becomes palatable. Rendered through mimicry and AI-generated references, his graphite drawings and sculpture show armchairs pierced, collapsed, or surrounded by debris. These wounded domestic scenes recall the “living room war,” where violent images on TV ease discomfort through familiarity and distance. Referencing Byung-Chul Han’s notion of Shanzhai, Loke treats mimicry as transformation—the reproduced image turning inward to critique both its source and its reception. In doing so, Unarmed Armchairs reveals the structures that instruct not only what we are shown, but how we’ve learned to look, opening space for new ways of seeing.

A spindly ladder‑like installation, OHP presents lower rungs that are splintered and uneven while the upper reaches resolve into cleaner, more solid planes. The structure looks as though it might collapse under the first step, yet it gains strength the higher it climbs—a deliberate inversion that mirrors Marcin Dudek’s (b. 1979, Poland) ascent from a hooligan growing up in post-communist Poland to an established artist. Each salvaged component carries the scars of its prior life; climbing becomes both confession and redemption, the shaky origins never erased but visibly supporting the stability achieved above.

Rendered on a grand scale, Maryanto’s (b. 1977, Indonesia) monochromatic landscapes also function as quiet acts of resistance. With painstaking technique, he scratches away darkness to uncover ecosystems that no longer survive. Each forest revealed exposes the wounds inflicted onto our lands by extraction, colonisation, and capitalism. His paintings serve as both an archive and warning, urging us to confront the realities we erase or neglect.

Finally, the quiet Straw (pink) by Noor Mahnun (b. 1964, Malaysia) stems from her still life series depicting domestic and everyday objects, often with a dash of humour. Straw (pink) subverts the classical still life tradition by replacing perishable subject matter (like food or flowers) with a disposable plastic takeaway cup, an emblem of synthetic permanence. This shift challenges the genre’s historical celebration of materiality and mortality, prompting reflection on modern consumption, waste, and ecological impact. Through meticulous rendering, Noor Mahnun elevates a mundane, mass-produced object, inviting viewers to reconsider notions of value and beauty in the everyday.

Xue Mu (b. 1979, China)’s energetic abstract creations work at the threshold between image, space, and perception. Mu’s projects unfold as shifting constellations of form and meaning—installations, photographs, and spatial interventions that invite viewers to inhabit a landscape where memory, material, and the act of seeing are in constant negotiation. In her abstract forms, images loosen to reveal their concealed causes, dissolving hierarchies and tracing the ever-circulating life of things as a complex, indivisible whole.

Holding (Space) is a showcase for artworks across sculptural and painterly mediums but also a metaphorical space for deeper questions about the systems we live in and reimagine. Presented as part of Singapore Gallery Month, and marking Yeo Workshop’s 12th anniversary, this exhibition reflects the gallery’s commitment to champion artists who probe and upend mainstream systems—continually sparking critical dialogue and fresh perspectives.