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Hazelina Oh is an emerging artist who majors in fine arts at one of the top art schools in Southeast Asia; LASALLE College of the arts.  Unlike other artists who discovered their passion for art at a young age, Hazelina only found her passion in art when she was in secondary school where she took arts as an ‘O’ level subject. She mentioned that it was a blessing in disguise; because initially she wanted to take Additional math but was unsuccessful. Instead of being disappointed, she decided to embrace the chance and it led her to where she is now; a fine artist who constantly explores the various type of art. Art has been a part of her life ever since. Hazelina sees art as a subconscious ‘need’; it is frequent and unchanging in her life. Art allows her to search her introverted self and the passion she has. Painting to her is a therapeutic experience, she feels greater pleasure and satisfaction in expressing herself through painting than simply writing or making a speech. Especially when no interruption is made during her private time of painting, she is able to acquire a sense of spiritual peace and it is often reflected in her work. Hazelina constantly mediates to achieve serenity, peace and a state of total calm.   The subject of interest is domestic living, where the entire family is at home; all bedrooms have a sacred significance to each individual as they an entire story about the owner of the room. One man who has tremendously inspired the young artist is, Vincent van Gogh. Regardless of whether she is painting or researching, she is awe-struck by the way Van Gogh paints. She often integrates the impressionism painting style; relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes. American realist “Edward Hopper” is her “personal hero”, his portrayal of American life cheekily is her little inspiration for domesticity of Singaporean life and one can easily spot the similarities to a certain extent. She also looks up to contemporary artists such as Jenny Saville, Chatchai Puipia, Damien Hirst and local artists like Vincent Leow, Tania de Rozario, Milenko Prvacki and Cheong Soo Pieng. The current school project she is working on is themed “Grids” which she aims to express more of her feelings rather than focus on technical skills. In this painting, based on her observation of pattern and lines that she has taken from the layout of her room, she is required to produce a piece of work. Each section serves a different purpose and usage that will form the grids to living in a home. The selected medium is oil and acrylic on canvas. She mentioned that this is a very time consuming project, “I worked on a lot of style and simply ended up decidedly on my initial vision of the work”, thus she wants to practice similarly to how minimalist artists do their paintings. Hazelina does not conform to the conventional painting technique, instead she likes to experiment and do crossovers from different art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking and sometimes she would exhaust all of them together to create a completely new work of art. She likes working with thick impasted painting style to create her own highly textured style; she constantly attempts to push definition between “visual representations”, where the medium is repeatedly used on intended vision. Thus far, Hazelina has contributed to many high profile exhibitions, such as “RAW” a nude figure drawing exhibition and her works are also exhibited in LASALLE foundation exhibition, which only showcases the art works of exemplary students. Not only that, her style has earned her a nomination in UOB young painter of the year. Hazelina’s goal is to create a new painting style in Singapore. As much as she is impressed with the Nanyang style, she feels that it is passé. In her opinion, Singapore is unable to earn its place in the global art scene because the local art education is too westernized and is in need to have a new identity. She aims to work as an art educator or an art researcher in the National Art Council while not neglecting the passion of making art. She loves to interact with students as she believes she can simultaneously learn from them, as well as pass on her knowledge to them. Furthermore, it is through that that art can the truly be universal.
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Canvas  by  andbamnan