While hardly reminiscent of a boy band, Singapore’s very own Backstreet Girl wanders the quiet passages behind our older housing estates to get inspiration for her own impressionistic compositions with paint and brush...

TCC, The Coffee Connoisseur's “The Gallery” on 51 Circular road is housed in a building that has lived through decades, in a neighbourhood that is a ‘trading’ gateway, and it is quite befitting for ASIA POP! to rest here for a while.

This Exhibition is a metaphor for a larger phenomenon - Singapore is a cosmopolitan Ambassador to the rest of Asia; by being here, we are pausing at a cultural crossroad. A few minutes at the tcc, basking in ASIA POP!, is a few minutes dipped into our collective consciousness, where we hope your ‘gaze’ will make these stories come alive.

This exhibition by the coffee connoisseur presents, for the first time, an opportunity for the viewers to interact with the artist’s work.

Ketna’s furniture, designed by her and crafted according to exact specifications, is a shrewd union of utility and art; it’s the commonplace and the gaudy re-contextualised and plastered onto a neat little sofa or a barber’s chair - quite ordinary and extremely comfortable, except when you realise the cushion you are resting against has the face of a Rajasthani woman mouthing western city lingo.

So when you sprawl on it, enjoy the fine fabric and the generous armrests, but also appreciate the chance to be physically present among the various stories of a continent in transition - that madcap, beautiful and confounding place we call Asia.

Ketna’s own cultural background is unsurprisingly diverse, with equal parts of Asia and Europe and a childhood in Africa thrown in. Her background in architecture informs the meticulousness of her compositions, and her use of colour - once you get past its neon loudness - is almost classically balanced

artist: Ketna Patel, exhibition title: con-fusion: if you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention, presented by: the coffee connoisseur, organised by: art-management.com, venue: the coffee connoisseur “The Gallery”, 51 Circular Road, date: 3 February to 31 March 2009, opening hours: Sunday to Thursday & Public Holidays 11:00 am to Midnight, Friday, Saturday & Eve of Public Holidays 11:00 am to 02:00am, free admission.

The installation, comprising portraits, indicts the images of children, generally thought to be free from wounding or loss, with the apprehension of an impending absence.

The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is back ...with its fourth edition from the 16th to the 27th of January. Organised and curated by The Necessary Stage, this much anticipated festival promises to be exhilarating, edgy and thought-provoking, across a variety of genres.