Danny Raven Tan
Danny Raven TAN (Chinese: 陳重源; pinyin: Chen Zhong Yuan; born 12 March 1967 – present) is a Singaporean painter, actor and designer of Hokkien and Peranakan descent. He is the co-founder of The Tiffin Gallery - an unconventional venue for art appreciation within an eclectic HDB flat in the heartlands of Ang Mo Kio town. Danny started drawing at the tender age of six and his favourite subject is girls because they look better.
“His drawing is very mature for his age” remarked Mr Lim Pang Kok, president of the Singapore Art and Craft Education Society. <The Straits Times 1973>
Education & Training
Danny was educated at Raffles Institution, Nanyang Junior College and subsequently the National University of Singapore, where he graduated from Building Estate Management (Hon) faculty, in 1992. He was a qualified Chartered Quantity Surveyor and have experiences across varied disciplines spent over 20 years in the property development, hotels & resorts and hospitality, tourism, fashion and education.
Danny studied Art in Nanyang Junior College. That was the only time he had two years of formal training under Mr Poh Siew Wah, a Singaporean artist known for his powerful Abstract Expressionistic styled paintings themed to Singapore and Southeast Asian landscapes.
Influence
Apart from Mr Poh, Danny is very much influenced by Austrian artist Voka, who coined the term Spontaneous Realism to describe the dynamic creative process of his representational and impressionistic imagery. The explosive colors and energetic brushwork in his paintings describe familiar images in a personal manner.
“To sit in a chair and not move until I have the project in mind I am more than a painter, I am a storyteller” - Lita Cabelut
When Danny got to know the Spanish painter Lita Cabelut, he immediately connected with her ideology and works.
Philosophy and works
The creative inspiration for Danny’s work begins with a very simple QUESTION Mark. This question usually is disturbing. Some might even regard it as silly. This question manifests from the many experiences in his life or issues that he faced or read about in the media or those that he heard from a friend or even things he sees and smell in this world.
Danny’s works are generally conceptual, impressionistic and provocative. Some may even see them as controversial. He loves to experiment and push boundaries in terms of the medium used. Danny’s works generally capture the energy and exuberance of his surroundings, using rich and vibrant colors, dynamic composition with bold brush strokes, mostly through intuition. According to him, the sheer anticipation of translating his emotion and ideas onto a white canvas is both exciting and agonizing! He enjoys being lost in this uncertain journey of timeless space filled with possibilities. However, Danny does not deliberately try to evocate controversial issues with shocking images through his works.
He feels that Art should not be sensationalized. Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb those in comfort. Art can communicate what words cannot. If one can see beyond the colors and the brush strokes of his work, and bring home a subtle agreement, a nagging discomfort or a sincere appreciation, whether they like or understand his work does not matter. All he wanted was a reaction. To date, Danny’s artwork had been acquired by private collectors from UK, USA, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.
The Tiffin Gallery
Danny set up The Tiffin Gallery in 2015 with his partner James Jordan TAY, theatre producer, after leaving Lasalle College of the Arts where he spent 6 years marketing the institution. The Tiffin Gallery is nestled in one of Singapore’s more uniquely named neighbourhood, Ang Mo Kio.
His decision to set up a home gallery as explained to Today (a local newspaper) is an opportunity for people to come into contact with both the artist and his works.
“A gallery of this nature is very interesting to both locals and tourists, who are curious about where and how the majority of Singaporean lives.”
says Danny Raven TAN about the gallery during an interview with the newspaper TODAY, where he combines living, working, and exhibiting his artworks.
He also shared with shared with ELEMENT magazine in an interview about why he decided to paint full-time and what motivates him in his pursuit of his dream.
Visitors to The TIFFIN Gallery are able to spend time with the artist in order to get an insight into how he works, and also to understand more about Singapore’s HDB culture over a cup of tea. Sometimes, visitors can also witness the painter at work. An art appreciation session is also conducted for a fee to sustain the gallery’s expenses.
He wants visitors to say, after they had visited The Tiffin Gallery- “I am glad I came”.
In a bid to introducer the concept of home gallery, Danny appeared on Singapore’s national TV, Mediacorp’s Channel 8’s “HELLO SINGAPORE” to share and explore the possibility of home art gallery for artists in Singapore as part of his vision to bring about art and the HDB community to closer proximity.
The Tiffin Gallery was also featured in “Home & Living” interior magazine in October 2015.
Online platform Danny’s works are featured online at Saatchi Art (www.saatchiart.com/dannyraventan), an art gallery based in Los Angeles or at Arts Finder (www.artfinder.com/dannyraventan),a London-based leading art platform with global network of independent artists and galleries.
His other design works can also be viewed online at Society6 under the label The Tiffin Gallery.
They are fun and quirky works, being translated into cushion covers, mugs, T-shirts, bed sheets and other household and lifestyle items, which tell a story if one looks and reflects upon the designs. Many of these designs have very strong Singaporean and Peranakan flavour.
Selected Exhibitions
2016 January, BAZAAR Art Prize Exhibition, Singapore
The exhibition presents artworks by emerging artists, who submitted their work for the inaugural BAZAAR Art Prize Competition. Danny’s work, “Hungry for Luxury” which questioned the definition of hunger and luxury was exhibited in one of Singapore’s oldest departmental store, Robinson.
2016, August, UN*LISTED, Singapore
Danny launched his solo exhibition in August 2016 at The Tiffin Gallery. In September of the same year, there were two more public showings of his works at the gallery to the public. This is part of the outreach programme by the Gallery to bring art appreciation to the heartlands. Many neighbours in the same block came to visit The Tiffin Gallery and were pleasantly surprised to find an artist and a gallery in their amidst. There were interaction between the artist and the HDB dwellers whom many had not had a chance to visit any gallery.
Personal Life
Danny was an avid supporter of Singapore theatre. He also acted in several plays during his school days. When he was in National University Singapore, he was one of the Character in "Six Characters in search of an Author" by Luigi Pirandello for Varsity Playhouse. He saw the birth of TheatreWorks and other major theatre companies in Singapore. He saw the old Drama Center on Fort Canning being demolished and the Victoria Theatre being renovated. He celebrated the 100 years of National Museum of Singapore on 19 March 2007 by being part of a devised performance involving 45 actors from all walks of life called “Fight Club – A Chorus” helmed by Daniel K, Janice Koh and Noorlinah Mohammad.
Danny had also produced and starred in a short film, titled When you are old, directed by Koh Chong Wu, which won the Singapore leg of Singtel Group’s “The 5-min Video Challenge"” in 2016. The story is based on his story with his mum who is suffering from cognitive impairment dementia. Inspired by the win, he is writing a stage play about the intricate relationship between a dementia patient and caregiver.
To further his cause to bring about awareness of dementia, Danny was featured on a Channel News Asia programme, Facing Dementia (episode 3) produced by The Moving Visuals. The programme discussed the various issues regarding the disease and how caregivers coped with their loved ones who were suffering from the illness.
Sources
<Teng Guan the child artist whose pet subject's girls. The Straits Times, 19 March 1973>
<http://www.the5minvideo.com/synopsis/>
<http://www.todayonline.com/entertainment/arts/spore-artist-danny-raven-tan-showcases-his-works-flat>
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/tv/tvshows/facing-dementia/caregivers-loved-ones/3323076.html>
<http://www.elementmag.asia/page/2/>
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