THE SHOPHOUSE is delighted to announce its participation in the 2025 edition of EASTEAST in Tokyo, Japan, featuring a solo exhibition by Singapore-based artist Theseus Chan, showcasing his ongoing series of works on paper, titled Drawings 2022 - 2025. This series continues Chan’s exploration of instability in visual language, prompting inquiries into whether drawing—like print—can remain alive, vulnerable, unrefined, and incomplete. At the booth, the artist will transform these drawings into a site-specific collage installation, improvising on-site by tearing and intermingling the works to create an entirely new assemblage. The exhibition will run at the Science Museum in Tokyo from 8 to 10 November 2025.

As a Singapore-born book artist, Theseus Chan’s practice encompasses design, publishing, and art-making. Since founding his studio WORK in 1997 and launching the ongoing publication WERK Magazine in 2000, he has consistently expanded the language of print, utilizing unstable materials, chance processes, and imperfection as core elements of his methodology.

Between 2022 and 2025, Chan returned to drawing as a means of unlearning design. Each piece emerged spontaneously, without premeditation or hierarchy, drawn quickly and intuitively on found paper and surfaces that bear their own histories. He sought not beauty or form, but rather traces of thought, emotion, and imperfection. These drawings serve as a diary of unrest, featuring recurring figures that collapse and reemerge. They are not mere studies or illustrations, but rather responses to daily conditions—uncertainty, noise, fatigue, and the quiet imperative to remain human within systems of production and expectation.

Presenting at EASTEAST in Tokyo, this series of drawings resonates with the fair’s spirit of independence and solidarity, embodying a shared inquiry into how artists and designers can continue to create, think, and resist through their own marks—by hand, by chance, and by necessity.

“Between 2022 and 2025, I turned to drawing as a way of unlearning design. Made quickly from found materials at hand, each piece captures fragments of thought, emotion, and imperfection. These drawings form a diary of unrest and persistence figures that repeat and disappear. They reflect the need to stay human within systems of production while continuing my search for instability in visual language and the possibility for drawing to remain alive, vulnerable, and incomplete.”
- Theseus Chan, 2025

THE SHOPHOUSE欣然宣布參加2025年東京EASTEAST藝術博覽會，展出駐新加坡藝術家陳益（Theseus Chan）的個展「Drawings 2022 - 2025」。此系列作品延續陳益對視覺語言不穩定性的探索，詰問素描是否能如印刷般，保持活力與脆弱，並呈現未經修飾的狀態。藝術家將於展位進行即興創作，將素描轉化為場域特定的拼貼裝置，透過撕裂與拼貼，構建全新作品。展覽將於2025年11月8日至10日在東京科學博物館舉行。
作為出生於新加坡的書籍藝術家，陳益的創作涵蓋設計、出版和藝術創作。自1997年創立WORK工作室，並於2000年啟動持續的出版物《WERK雜誌》以來，他始終在擴展印刷的語言，將不穩定的材料、偶然的過程與不完美作為其方法論的核心要素。

在2022至2025年之間，陳益重新回到素描，作為一種解構設計的方式。每件作品都是自發性創作，沒有預先構想，快速且直覺性地在帶有自身歷史的現成紙張或表面上完成創作。他尋求的既非美或形式，而是思維、情感和不完美的自然痕跡。這些素描猶如一章章不安的日記，展現了反覆出現與消失的形象。它們不僅僅是研究或插圖，而是對日常狀態的回應——不確定性、噪音、疲倦，以及在生產和期望體系中保持人性的靜默必要。

展示於東京的EASTEAST藝術博覽會中，這系列的作品與展會的獨立又團結的精神相呼應，體現了藝術家和設計師如何能夠透過自身的印記——共同以手工、偶然和必要的方式持續探索有關創造、思考和抵抗。

「在2022至2025年間，我轉向素描作為解構設計的方法。這些作品迅速地在手邊尋獲的材料上完成，捕捉了思維、情感和不完美的片段。這些素描形成了一個不安的日記，反映出重覆出現和消失的形象。它們反映了在生產體系中保持人性的需求，同時延續我對視覺語言不穩定性的探索，以及素描能否保持活力、脆弱和不完整的可能性。」
—— 陳益，2025年