The solo exhibition “Between Plastic” by local artist Ng Sekha opened yesterday evening at the Rui Cunha Foundation’s (FRC) gallery, presenting painting, performance and installation works that explore “plastic” as both concept and material.
The exhibition displays 19 oil and acrylic paintings, sculptures and glass installations created by Ng, whose recent practice has focused on examining plastic’s physical properties and its broader social, cultural and philosophical implications.
The exhibition is co-organised by the Rui Cunha Foundation (FRC), Macau Youth Art Association and Macau Artist Society, and is curated by Guo Yun, with academic guidance from Guilherme Ung Vai Meng.
According to a message by the co-organisers displayed at the gallery’s entrance, Ng translated her earlier performance works into easel painting, while reintroducing plastic hemispheres into the pictorial field. The message elaborates that “transparent plastic is repeatedly inserted between painting, performance, and installation. Through its semi-concealing, malleable, and almost weightless materiality, it constructs an ambiguous perceptual structure – neither fully obstructive nor fully transparent – placing the body, the image, and the act of viewing in a constant state of tension and instability”.
The exhibition also draws on the multiple meanings associated with the word “plastic” across different cultures. As noted in the message, in a Western context the term extends beyond materiality to ideas of plastic surgery, consumer culture and “the social mechanisms through which the body is designed, regulated, and observed”.
In contrast, the Chinese understanding of plastic (塑, “modelling”)* according to the message, simultaneously refers to shaping, reshaping and regeneration, “pointing toward a state of incompletion and continuous becoming”.
“It is within this semantic tension that Ng operates, transforming plastic into a method rather than a singular medium,” the message noted, adding that this approach mediates “between perception and structure, and between individual experience and social mechanisms”.
According to an FRC statement yesterday, Ng holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and is currently a PhD student in Art History and Art Theory at the Faculty of Humanities and Arts of the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST).
The statement noted her artistic practice encompassing performance art, installation and easel painting, with a focus on gender philosophy, identity and contemporary art, adding that her works have been shown locally, in the Chinese mainland and overseas, including exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Beijing, the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, Tank Shanghai, the Chengdu Biennale, the Guangzhou Museum of Art, Shenzhen’s Luohu Art Museum, AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong, the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, and in Lisbon.
In a Post interview, prior to the opening ceremony, Ng said that the exhibition developed from her earlier performance works, in which she continuously wrote “inside an enclosed sphere until suffocation forced me to break free”. She said that her practice weaves together performance, installation and painting, with traditional calligraphy serving as a bridge between her body and the canvas. “Since 2015, ‘plastic’ has been a continuous theme in my work. Its properties – transparent yet hazy, light yet resilient – reflect our complex perception of the world, navigating between isolation and transparency,” she said, adding that she explores the concept across different media, allowing both the material meaning of plastic and its notion of shaping to surface naturally.
According to Ng, the exhibition represents an “unfinished” process, where traces of past performances evolve into new visual forms, linking personal experience with broader social structures.
With free admission, the works can be viewed until next Sunday, February 7, with exhibitiongoers welcome to visit the gallery at 749 Avenida da Praia Grande, Luen Pong Building. The gallery is open from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays.
*The Greek etymology of the word “plastic” means “fit for moulding”. – Poe
Local artist Ng Sekha poses next to one of her exhibits at her solo exhibition “Between Plastic” yesterday evening at the Rui Cunha Foundation’s (FRC) gallery on Avenida da Praia Grande. – Photos: Khalel Vallo
