ABOUT THE WORK

The café chairs are in a state of waiting: “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.” (Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot). This is from the year that Allan Balisi made his first show. From his first show in 2006 onwards, there’s always been a very strong narrative undercurrent in the work of Allan Balisi. This work is no less fragmented, no less drawn from personal history, and no less given over to the pursuit of the elusive stories that go on behind the image. His later solo exhibitions include Five Paintings at ‘Blanc Gallery,’ Mirages at ‘Silverlens,’ Manila and ‘We are Awake Elsewhere’ at Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore. Balisi would afterwards explore the sense of familiarity of images supported by the ever increasing dependence, or rather immersion, in a visual culture (“One of the marks of our world is perhaps this reversal: we live according to a generalized image-repertoire. … everything is transformed into images: only images exist and are produced and are consumed”- Roland Barthes).