Bewitched Ng Eng Teng Nationality: Singaporean. Year: 1992. Medium: Bronze. Size: 68 x 58 x 28cm.

Bewitched, 1992 (Fig. 39) is perhaps the most interesting of Eng Teng's cast-in-Thailand bronzes and can be considered a forerunner of the Torso-to-Face group of works which emerged two years later. It is part human and part a figment of the artist's imagination. Here, humanity merges into a broader nature and consciousness slips into dream. Head, upper arms and legs are missing in this drastically abbreviated work. It is frontally and symmetrically composed, with arms folded enigmatically below the breasts which seem on the verge of doubling up as eyes. This eye-breast interchangeability is fully evolved in Small Eyes, 1994 (Fig. 40) which is among the earliest in the Torso-to-Face series and closely related to Sitting Pretty A, 1994 (Fig. 41).

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