Han Sai Por b. 1943 in Singapore has had an exceptional career as a sculptor, working with a wide range of materials such as fibreglass, wood, glass, bronze, steel, and, more recently, paper. However, she is best known for her work with stone from carving and polishing figurative and organic abstract forms out of stone pieces to hewing hefty 20 tns blocks of granite so as to confront the viewer with the raw presence of the rock and the force of her chiselling, hammering, and drilling. She first worked as a full-time teacher after graduating from the Singapore Teachers’ Training College in 1968 but took part-time art courses at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) for two years. In 1979, she left Singapore for the UK to pursue undergraduate studies in fine art at the East Ham College of Art (London) and the Wolverhampton College of Art (Wolverhampton). It was here that she learned and honed her skills for stone sculpture from her teachers. She returned in 1983 to Singapore and became an art teacher for most of the 1980s and 1990s, whilst developing her career as a sculptor. She later left for Canterbury, New Zealand, to take up further studies in landscape architecture at Lincoln University. Although born into an impoverished family of six children, Han Sai Por had a carefree childhood, spent mostly by the sea on Changi beach exploring and constructing different forms from sand and found objects. As Han Sai Por notes: “In my sculpture, I would like to depict life and nature. I derive inspiration by sensitively observing natural forms. I eliminate everything superfluous to create pure and essential form, rather than a mere superficial imitation of nature. I would like to think my sculpture has a force or inner life inside struggling to get out.” Han Sai Por’s work has been exhibited and collected in Southeast Asia, China, Japan, South Korea, North America and Europe, and a number are public and private commissions. For her contributions to art, she was awarded Singapore’s Cultural Medallion in 1995. #hansaipor #singaporeanfemaleartist #singaporeanfemalesculptor #femalesculptor #femaleartist #adeletan https://www.instagram.com/p/CGzNszqn406/?igshid=dnfhxs2bycwq
