Sitting Torso Ng Eng Teng Nationality: Singaporean. Year: 1994. Medium: Stoneware & coloured clay inlay. Size: 59 x 33 x 47cm.

Seen from certain view points, it is almost impossible not to perceive a phallic shape in Sitting Torso, 1994 (Fig. 38). Amorphous and pared down to the minimum, it is enlivened by an inlaid surface patterning. Although committed to figurative work, Eng Teng is all the while testing his own capacity to re-invent the human form in abstract terms. Sensual and disquieting, his work often arouses ambivalent feelings. The simple, emblematic forms have the power not only to arouse strong responses but to provoke consideration of a range of issues which are fundamental to our sexuality.

--Bodies Transformed ch. 5

References

Constance Sheares. Bodies Transformed: Ng Eng Teng in the Nineties. Singapore: NUS Museums/ National University of Singapore, 1999.

This document is part of a joint project of the NUS Museums and the University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore. This image and accompanying text appears here with the kind permission of the NUS Museums.

Last updated: 11 January 2001