Design Blog Journal: Visiting the National Art Gallery!

This is my very first time here. I came here with few of my friends since we couldn't make it last Saturday. Apparently the National Art Gallery has changed its name to National Visual Arts Gallery, according to the security guard there as we thought we got to the the wrong place! We are not allowed to snap photo of the paintings, however we have been told by the receptionists that we could take pictures around the lobby.

Before we enter the building, we have to take the escalator up and the entrance is right up there.

As we go up, there were collages of paintings as the wallpaper at the side of the escalators. This has already triggered my excitement and curiosity about how does it looks like in the building.

When we stepped in through the entrance, I was immediately attracted by the painting behind the reception counter. It was a long horizontal painting with a man surrounded with helicopters. It was a very colorful painting and I think it fits really well with the interior design of the hall.

After we signed our names at the book placed at the reception counter, we immediately step into the very first floor of the National Art Gallery.

Reception counter

Happy Garden by Chang Yoong Chia

There are three floors in this building. To me, the first floor is my favorite, The very first painting that attracted my attention was a oil paint named 'Happy Garden' by the artist Chang Yoong Chia. This painting is very interesting and it sort of reminds me of the story Alice in the Wonderland. In the middle of the painting there is a very huge rabbit sitting on the floor of a living room in the house with babies rabbit at the stomach area, which i guess they are drinking milk from the mother rabbit. The reason why I think that it was a living room is because there are pictures hanging on the wall which is what a family usually does- hanging family members' pictures on the wall of their living room. Right behind the giant rabbit, there is a tower with many small houses and ladders connecting each floors. There are small little humans walking outside the house, and some are climbing up the tower to a higher level using the ladders. The painting was painted that the size of things and creatures were totally the opposite of what we usually see in reality. The rabbit is actually bigger than the houses and humans! Besides, on the left hand side, there is a giant ant, which is just slightly shorter than the tower of houses. It was a really big ant. The ant wasn't crawling but standing up instead with the other four legs up as if those were it's hands. Furthermore, there is an elephant with a human body sitting right in a tree branch, with his right palm facing out. It looks like a Hindu God to me as it has a 'dot' on it's forehead. The surrounding in the house became like a forest and a man is standing there with his facial expression which looked like he was shocked by what is happening in the house. The man is touching the giant rabbit's body and at the same time with the other hand pushing against the wall. His body gestures showed that he was really shocked and amazed at the same time. Then, beside the man, there is a lady holding a giant goldfish as the goldfish is almost as equivalent as half of her body and the size of the lady is somewhat smaller compared to the man. There is also an egg on a nest, it feels like it is Easter as there are egg and rabbits! Little humans are walking and chilling happily around the forest-liked surrounding.There is another man and lady at the entrance of the living room and their sizes are different from each other which looks like they are shrinking to the size of the little humans around. We'll never know when is the man who touches the rabbit's turn.

Someone Forgotten (Dream & Reality) by Wong Woan Lee

This painting shows a room with 3 sections of rooms as the front view. An old man was lying on a thin mattress on the floor, staring blankly on the ceiling, with a family photo laying beside him. He is wearing a shorts and topless, the ribs of him were shown and that shows that he is at the stage of old age and left with nothing. I can see that he is thinking of someone, which is most probably his family. In the first section of the room (most right hand side), there shows the old man staring at his past, where he is watching the television with his wife and grandchildren. In front of the second section of the room (middle), there shows the old man sitting down on the floor with his both hands placed on his head, looking down, feeling disappointed. In the room there shows four of the same old man, one is that he is lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling blankly, and another two is that he is staring at the wall without a piece of his mind and the last 'him' is holding a lollipop while staring at it. From this we can tell that he misses his family very much and the wife may be already passed away, leaving him alone in the house as the children already formed their own family, living on their own. There is a window in this section of room where his children is staring at him outside the window without taking any actions after seeing their fathers' loneliness. Lastly, at the third section of the room, it shows that the old man is giving his grand daughters lollipop, but his grand daughters did not accept it but staring at him looking confused as the old man reach out his hand to give them the lollipop. I doubt the grandchildren even recognize who the old man is. The sad story of the man being abandoned and left alone was all seen through his eyes. He is staring at the ceiling hopelessly and lifelessly. He is just living without a life.

This painting tells me how forgetful and ignorant is the younger generation nowadays. As our parents get old in the future, we as the children should take care of them, give them love just like how they did when we were young. However, not many people could even do this. As we can see in the present, many old parents were sent to the old folks home as the children claimed that they have no time to take care of them. They create excuses just to avoid the responsibilities. Their parents had eventually became someone that is forgotten. Sometimes old people living on their own would loved to have their children and grandchildren paying them visits more often. They dream to see their beloved children and grand children. However, the reality is children who would visit their parents often became so rare that most of the them are just taking things for granted and ignore the effort of visiting their parents by giving excuses. Due to the irresponsible act of the children, the younger generation which is the children's children would observe everything and eventually behave exactly like them in the future when they grow up. Therefore, the younger generation should be taught since young so that this kind of sad scenes would not happen anymore.

We must love our parents endlessly and never ever leave any one of them behind.

As we continue to explore the building and this is what we have found: