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3 March 2023 β€” Seelan Palay’s latest solo Battle for the Year 3000 to open at MAVEN Gallery on 4 March 2023

Seelan Palay’s latest solo Battle for the Year 3000 will open at MAVEN Gallery on 4 March 2023. The show features works that the artist has worked on for the past few years, as he draws extensively on ideas from spirituality, religion, cosmology, numerology, and science fiction. The show draws its title from imagining what changes art and humanity will undergo in the next thousand years, as prompted by the Martin Luther King, Jr. quote: β€œthe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Numerous (and undoubtedly cryptic) references to historical events, iconic paintings, and religious figures pepper the exhibition, which will be sure to prompt viewers to speculate the significance of such details. If anything, you’ll get the sense that you aren’t fully grasping the whole picture, prompting you to ask questions and hypothesiseβ€”which is part of the artist’s intentions.Β 

While Palay’s previous paintings boasted palettes of ultramarine and blue, this new body of works sees the addition of glimmering gold paint, typically used to signify a spiritual dimension in the works.Β 

A brilliant example of this is THE RETURN OF THE BLOOD ANGELS IN THE TEMPLE OF TIME AND TRANSCENDENCE, which touches on the artist’s Sri Lankan Tamil descent. It sees a golden tigerβ€”the emblem of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelamβ€”turned sideways to signify the party’s defeat during the Sri Lankan Civil War, with rays emanating outwards from its centre. Below it are illustrations of a brain and a lung, suggesting how resistance might be continued not through the use of arms, but by theorising. At the edges of the canvas are years relating to the conflict, which ran from 23 Jul 1983 – 18 May 2009.

Seelan Palay, THE RETURN OF THE BLOOD ANGELS IN THE TEMPLE OF TIME AND TRANSCENDENCE. Acrylic and enamel on canvas, 95cm x 130cm (2023).
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Have a look at our photographs below to check out the space and other exhibition highlights!

The exterior of Maven Gallery, located on Neil Road. It’s Singapore’s first crypto-enabled art gallery, meaning that they accept crypto as payment, rather than traditional currencies. The gallery is part of MAVEN International, which boasts a members’ club.
Exhibition view of Battle for the Year 3000, featuring the paintings (left) AN ARCHEOLOGY OF THE OMNIPRESENCE IN PALLIATIVE SILENCE (MULTIDIMENSIONAL MATERNAL GUIDANCE ARRAY), TO ALL OUR TOMORROWS, IN DUE TIME (CALLING UPON THE SUN, AND THE MOON), and THE RETURN OF THE BLOOD ANGELS IN THE TEMPLE OF TIME AND TRANSCENDENCE.
Exhibition view of Battle for the Year 3000. This section considers ideas of the future and human perception, as it layers gold patterns and diagrams from numerous religions over illustrations of animals that are typically perceived by humans to be ‘bad’ or ‘scary’.
Seelan Palay, LO IRA RA: TO RECLAIM ALL OF REALITY (FOR MOTHER EARTH AND FATHER TIME). Acrylic and enamel on canvas, 95cm x 130cm (2023). It features an ultramarine centipede–a creature that humans perceive as frightening despite how no bugs are intrinsically good or bad. On top of it is a pattern relating to the occult Jewish tree of life; a reference to the artist’s partial Jewish heritage.
Seelan Palay, THE ETERNAL WAR IS A WAR FOR ETERNITY (AFTER GOYA, AFTER GOD). Acrylic and enamel on canvas 95cm x 130cm,
(2023). The ultramarine humanoid figure refers to one of Francisco Goya’s paintings that features a man calling out to God during war, with gold paint dripping from his hands. The title evokes existentialist angst, as it forms a play on words that takes inspiration from both Goya and God, while contemplating what comes temporally after the Spanish painter and religion.

The exhibition runs from 4 to 13 March 2023 at Maven Gallery, 31 Neil Rd, Singapore 088819. Click here to find out more.

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