Dylan Chan
Selected works
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©2025 Dylan Chan
Bio
b. 1997 in Singapore, Chan is an artist whose practice engages with themes of intimacy, memory, and the subtle, often unnoticed facets of daily life. Working with photography and collage, Chan crafts layered visuals that explore the periphery of human experiences. His work addresses the body and notions of visibility, encapsulating quiet narratives that touch on identity and belonging. Recognised with the Winston Oh Practice Award, Chan’s thoughtful storytelling has been featured in exhibitions such as With You Here Between: Defamiliarisations at Objectifs.
Peering In/Out (2024)
This series titled peering in takes inspiration from the geometric patterns created by trellidors, exploring their symbolism in both South African and Singaporean contexts. Situated at the thresholds of homes, these barriers evoke notions of security, separation, and social boundaries, while subtly addressing the everyday tensions between inside and outside domestic spaces. In South Africa, trellidors serve as a protective mesaure, and yet also act as a decorative relic of needing that level of safety. Similarly in Singapore, the double door system in public housing mirrors similar concerns around safety, but more often than not act as dividers between what is public and private in a city-state which struggles with a lack of space.
This work delves into the duality of domesticity—both as a space of comfort and as a site of longing or exclusion. By placing emphasis on the architectural object of the trellidor, it brings forth nuanced reflections on homeownership, social division, and the quest for security. The installation also speaks to a larger narrative around contested spaces, hinting at the emotional stakes involved in claiming a sense of belonging within urban environments.
This body of work was created during South Africa x Singapore residency host by BlvckBlock.
Growing Pains (2024)
Growing pains is Chan’s latest exploration into the components of domesticity that explore themes of queer longing and seeking comfort. The work uses bed slats to unpack the bed as a site of happenings within the context of a queer relationship or in solitude and contemplating one’s own identity. In broadening the context beyond a space of rest and intimacy, the bed becomes a space where a multitude of negotiations take place. As the title suggests, it contemplates the growing pains which the body undergoes at the various stages of one's life, reflecting on the fallible body, trying to tie threads of desire, grief, and tension together.For enquiries: Artsy Dylan Chan
Related articles: Exhibition Review
My Best Friend (2023)
“Who’s that?”
“That’s Dylan’s friend”
More often than not, the introduction of a queer partner is veiled behind the label of a ‘friend’, subtly disguising the relationship and also negotiating the boundaries of acceptance within one’s family. This tacit acknowledgement creates an illusion of approval of the relationship; a delicate balance, which bridges two worlds. Code switching and traveling is common for those living between these parallel identities of being someone’s child and someone else’s lover.
The body of work shown at I_S_L_A_N_D_S is an installation comprising of printed organza curtain-like panels. The panels resemble doorways, inviting the audience to use different access points to consider the thresholds we use to gain acceptance from someone else’s family. The sheer panels obscure and leave the viewer unable to see a single image without considering the others, creating a private space within the gallery. This setup allows the onlooker to play with the concepts of permeability and the time we spend in between the roles of ‘child’ and ‘adult’, between ‘friend’ and ‘partner’, between knowing, seeing, and accepting.
Related articles: Plural Art Mag
Parquet (Series) (2022-2023)
From Mine To Yours, 2022
Presented as part of the Objectifs Curator Open Call 2022. From Mine to Yours presents a series of parquet pieces that marks the start of Chan’s exploration into domestic objects and surfaces. In trying to articulate the poignant moments of the mundane, Chan is interested in the ways we navigate thresholds and relationships between private spaces and the surfaces we come into contact with. Chan brings into focus the act of peeling back the layers of intimate relationships and reflects upon the spaces we dwell in and how we navigate them.
Peering Through, A Gentle Whisper, 2022
Peering Through, A Gentle Whisper is an installation that examines spaces, and how the body’s position itself within it, focusing on the formation of sentiment towards an inhabited space in relation to objects - primarily the private domestic.
Between the body and the ground, between the ground and the walls.
Breaking the installation down into two parts. Peering Through, consists of a series of printed blinds on pvc, alluding to a threshold been public and private, inviting one to situate themselves within this formed space of the studio.
Whilst A Gentle Whisper, is comprised of a selection of embossed parquet prints. These prints centers the bodily interaction within that space, using paper as a way to articulate the bodies ability to conform within any given setting.
Prints:
Hold me closer (2023)
“hold me closer”, is a series of engravings on acrylic, the latest exploration into chan’s parquet series. It revisits familiar themes of the domestic and how sentimentali- ties get embedded within these surfaces. Viewing the engravings as an extension of Chan’s body, he examines the ways in which queer individuals negotiate public spaces, unraveling the layers of societal constructs that shape our understanding of the queer body.
The engravings are abstractions of instances captured, playing with the permeability of the acrylic, Chan con- fronts the dichotomy between the private and public self. These sculptures, navigate the tension between visibility and invisibility, making visible the often unseen, unheard, or shamed experiences of the queer body.