“When words fail, art speaks.” The Painters: HERO brings much truth to this phrase, with its ingenious and expressive use of art, dance, mime and comedy to communicate with and engage the audience in a purely non-verbal way. Rapidly making its rounds across the globe, the Korean wave is no longer just confined to television dramas and music, but is also asserting itself in the world of dance and visual arts as we saw in The Painters, a lively and unconventional act from Seoul.
The four talented performers of The Painters have since painted their way into the hearts of millions in Asia over an impressive 7,000 shows, and graced the stage of Resorts World Theatre in Singapore on 10 and 11 June 2016 to put up a sensational eighty-minute long performance. Debunking the popular cliché “Jack of all trades, master of none”, the fantastic four consisting of Shin Koo Kang, Kwang Min So, Woo Ram Kwon, Bo Ram Hong, are truly masterful painters, dancers, actors and even comedians all at once, stunning the audience into silence in a radiant display of raw talent onstage.
The four artists engage in an exciting segment of Battle Drawing, accompanied by suspenseful music and lighting.
What sets The Painters: HERO apart from other art shows that have reached Singapore shores is how it brings to life the process of making art, with each performer transforming blank canvases into stunning works before your very eyes in just minutes. We are often so accustomed to admiring completed masterpieces in museums and galleries, but neglect the satisfaction that flows from the process of artistic creation – this is precisely what the performers endeavour to share with their audience, through a medley of unconventional techniques, medium and materials, with a great deal of humorous audience interaction thrown in the mix. Indeed, the journey of creating art matters just as much, or even more, than the end result, and judging from the favourable responses of the audience time and again, actually makes for a much more riveting performance.
The four artists showcase their art pieces from the Battle Drawing segment – these works feature the three Chinese warriors Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or San Guo Yan Yi.
One of the most impressive parts of the performance was light drawing, and we can see featured here a glow-in-the-dark image of a ‘spectacular cupid’.
True to the theme of “HERO”, the performers immortalise many celebrated heroes on stage through the power of art, from the great pop artist Michael Jackson, to comedic legend Charlie Chaplin, to revered martial artist Bruce Lee, and even to everyone’s beloved childhood superhero Superman. One of the most popular Chinese literature classics, Romance of the Three Kingdoms or San Guo Yan Yi, even made an unexpected appearance in the form of the warriors Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu. The speed at which the works are produced is astonishing, but what is even more impressive is the accuracy and high attention to detail, together with the intense passion that each performer exudes onstage.
The great martial artist Bruce Lee gets immortalised on stage through the technique of dust painting.
Apart from typical canvas painting, there were several different unconventional techniques executed to perfection, and some more memorable ones included cube art, where many Rubik’s Cubes were utilised to form an image of Superman’s logo, light scratching, where glass was used as a medium for carving, and marbling art, where the artists delicately painted in water, and the mixture of colours gradually took the shape of a mermaid. There were even several special elements incorporated that specifically targeted Singaporeans, such as the neon handwritten phrase “I Love Singapore” and a beautiful representation of Singapore’s city skyline with the Merlion.
Light scratching is executed to perfection on stage, leaving the audience awed by the high level of skill and attention to detail displayed.
The lively, upbeat dance moves, heavy audience engagement and most importantly, the awe-inspiring pieces of art all unite in a flawless performance, that came across both well-rehearsed and completely spontaneous at the same time. The Painters: HERO is truly a gem of a performance you should not miss, if you are ever in Seoul or Jeju, or if they decide to come back to Singapore next year.
