HE THE POWER HAS

Recognised as one of the foremost artists in Singapore, Heman Chong is setting his sights on expanding his global footprint 

- Alexandra A Seno

Heman Chong is busy. “Like, SUPER busy, because I’m working on, like, eight solo shows at the same time,” the 46-year-old Singaporean artist says. “The next three years will be really, really intense, but I’m enjoying the intensity and that complexity of having to work on so many things at the same time.” Aside from the big solo exhibitions coming up, he is in group presentations, he has commissioned pieces, and he has shows scheduled in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Conceptual artist Chong hustles hard. Like, super hard, as he might put it. Yet if you saw him wandering along a roadside in Singapore—strolling is a part of his practice—you’d be forgiven for not realising he is one of the country’s most significant cultural figures. He likes to blend into the background, in his T-shirts, Nike sweatpants and sneakers: the perfect cover for making the deep observations that inform and shape his art. Of course, once he starts speaking, you realise he is not your average man on the street and how serious he is about what he does.

“The walking is very, very important because it’s also a way of engaging with my body,” he says. “It’s part exercise, part reflection, part meditation. A lot of the ideas that I am working on [are processed] when I’m walking. I’m a very sort of classically Greek kind of guy—it’s like the idea of pre-ambulating.”