John Clang is a contemporary Singaporean visual artist, photographer and independent
filmmaker born in 1973. Clang lives and works in New York and Singapore and started his job in
Singapore taking pictures of his family. Clang at 17 years of age enrolled in Lasalle College of
Arts in Singapore to study fine arts but left after six months to shadow a fine art photographer
Chua Soo Bin. Clang has also received his Master of Arts Fine Arts in Goldsmiths, University of
London, UK. He held his first exhibition (which was a duo-show) at the controversial (and now
non-operational) Singapore art group 5th Passage Artists. In 2001 he held his first solo
exhibition at the Dianne von Furstenberg Foundation in New York. Clang was inspired and
adores the work of Jeff Wall, Felix Gonzalez- Torres (conceptual artist who occasionally uses
photography), Thomas Struth and Gabriel Orozco (conceptual artist). He also adores work from
the filmmakers Hou Hsiao Hsien and Tsai Ming-liang.
Clang's photography features urban, city environments populated with everyday people going
about their day-to-day business. He takes these images and distorts them slightly to create a
jigsaw puzzle effect on the surface of the work that lifts them from the flow of an ordinary
existence. He explores time through the interaction of humans in different dimensions by
combining many pictures yet keeping the architectural pattern the same.
Clang says; "The commonplaces attract me—I resonate with subject matters closely related to
my daily life. I often dwell upon urban and contemporary themes and landscapes; be it
estrangement and intimacy in an urban space or our sense of identity and place in this world".
He shows distinct strangers sharing space in an ordinary urban landscape, which creates an
interesting perspective of movement across space and time. The three-dimensional distortion
experienced by his subjects added together with Clang’s keen abstract aesthetics creates a clear
nostalgic images that intrigues the philosophical and romantic imagination as it makes the
viewer question if people are closer than they seem in time because of the physical space
everybody shares.
The people found in Clang’s pictures are fund naturally as Clang wanted to depict a normal
everyday lifestyle, but Clang did later manually edit the pictures by ripping different pictures up
and then combining them together while keeping the background subject (the buildings) in a
regular pattern. After editing, the pictures are full and tightly packed which adds a sense of
business and intimacy between the people sharing the space. Each individual image is taken
close to the camera and that can be seen by how close the people’s faces are (how enlarged
they are). Clang tends to only take the interesting parts of a picture and rip out the rest so that
each picture with its interesting element combines together to produce a bigger intriguing
picture overall. All of the individual pictures are sharp in focus but however the aperture and
depth of field is not clear because of the fact that each picture in itself only focuses on one
individual aspect. Natural light has been used as the photographs were taken on the street, so
no other artificial light was available to use. The colours used are the natural colours found on
the street due to people’s various clothing and this blending of statuary colours adds to the
sense of ordinariness of people’s life and the mundane subject. In regards to composition, the
picture overall fits together nicely dur to the symmetrical joining of the structural background
filmmaker born in 1973. Clang lives and works in New York and Singapore and started his job in
Singapore taking pictures of his family. Clang at 17 years of age enrolled in Lasalle College of
Arts in Singapore to study fine arts but left after six months to shadow a fine art photographer
Chua Soo Bin. Clang has also received his Master of Arts Fine Arts in Goldsmiths, University of
London, UK. He held his first exhibition (which was a duo-show) at the controversial (and now
non-operational) Singapore art group 5th Passage Artists. In 2001 he held his first solo
exhibition at the Dianne von Furstenberg Foundation in New York. Clang was inspired and
adores the work of Jeff Wall, Felix Gonzalez- Torres (conceptual artist who occasionally uses
photography), Thomas Struth and Gabriel Orozco (conceptual artist). He also adores work from
the filmmakers Hou Hsiao Hsien and Tsai Ming-liang.
Clang's photography features urban, city environments populated with everyday people going
about their day-to-day business. He takes these images and distorts them slightly to create a
jigsaw puzzle effect on the surface of the work that lifts them from the flow of an ordinary
existence. He explores time through the interaction of humans in different dimensions by
combining many pictures yet keeping the architectural pattern the same.
Clang says; "The commonplaces attract me—I resonate with subject matters closely related to
my daily life. I often dwell upon urban and contemporary themes and landscapes; be it
estrangement and intimacy in an urban space or our sense of identity and place in this world".
He shows distinct strangers sharing space in an ordinary urban landscape, which creates an
interesting perspective of movement across space and time. The three-dimensional distortion
experienced by his subjects added together with Clang’s keen abstract aesthetics creates a clear
nostalgic images that intrigues the philosophical and romantic imagination as it makes the
viewer question if people are closer than they seem in time because of the physical space
everybody shares.
The people found in Clang’s pictures are fund naturally as Clang wanted to depict a normal
everyday lifestyle, but Clang did later manually edit the pictures by ripping different pictures up
and then combining them together while keeping the background subject (the buildings) in a
regular pattern. After editing, the pictures are full and tightly packed which adds a sense of
business and intimacy between the people sharing the space. Each individual image is taken
close to the camera and that can be seen by how close the people’s faces are (how enlarged
they are). Clang tends to only take the interesting parts of a picture and rip out the rest so that
each picture with its interesting element combines together to produce a bigger intriguing
picture overall. All of the individual pictures are sharp in focus but however the aperture and
depth of field is not clear because of the fact that each picture in itself only focuses on one
individual aspect. Natural light has been used as the photographs were taken on the street, so
no other artificial light was available to use. The colours used are the natural colours found on
the street due to people’s various clothing and this blending of statuary colours adds to the
sense of ordinariness of people’s life and the mundane subject. In regards to composition, the
picture overall fits together nicely dur to the symmetrical joining of the structural background
