Out Painting The Town; Living in a rapidly changing city is a major, if unintentional, theme of the Singapore Art Show.

Byline: Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop

All cities change, but Singapore seems to change a little faster than most. From small fishing village to colonial outpost to cosmopolitan metropolis, the city-state keeps reinventing itself, sometimes at neck-breaking speed. Skyscrapers, expressways, concrete and glass are now icons of a highly urbanized city whose seemingly insatiable craving for new buildings shows no sign of abating.

How artists respond to such a rapidly changing environment is at the heart of several new exhibitions in town. They form part of the Singapore Art Show, a two-month visual-arts event involving more than 300 Singaporean or Singapore-based artists showcasing their work in 47 venues, ranging from museums and art galleries to shopping malls and nature reserves. Established to promote local work, the event does not have an overarching theme. But perhaps unsurprisingly in a city obsessed with making its mark on the region, Singapore itself is at the heart of many of the exhibitions. "Every city in Asia is in competition with one another to be 'the city'," says Seng Yu Jin, a co-curator of "Imagining the City," one of the festival's anchor shows. "For artists it's appealing because they can respond to the changes they see. The theme of city is in a way a metaphor on how their own lives are changing."

The offerings reveal a mixed bag of feelings. Nostalgia dominates many of the works, including some by doyen artist Lim Tze Peng, 84, whose "Singapore River" depicts the traditional boats unloading at warehouses that have since been converted into bars and restaurants. It was recently painted from a sketch he'd done only 20 years ago, and uses warm golden hues to convey a sentimental vision of a life that has already vanished. Leading contemporary ink painter Chua Ek Kay also looks back on a city that is fast disappearing, capturing old shophouses, narrow alleyways and tiled roofs. "I'm not trying to depict the scenery faithfully or in its entirety," he says. "Painting these shophouses is for me a way of reflecting not just on the disappearance of buildings, but of a cultural past and social ...