ART SEASONS

Laughing Buddha and The Story

About Artwork

Artist Profile

PHUNK is an internationally acclaimed, Singapore-based contemporary design and art collective founded in 1994 by Alvin Tan (b. 1974), Melvin Chee (b. 1974), Jackson Tan (b. 1974) and William Chan (b. 1973). Meeting as graphic design students at Singapore's LASALLE College of the Arts, they discovered a shared passion for pop-culture phenomena such as Japanese manga, sci-fi, indie pop, Chinese kung-fu movies and a rock-and roll lifestyle. Through collective jamming with ideas, visuals and technical effects, they reinvented themselves as a 'visual rock band', developing a signature style that seamlessly fuses an eclectic range of cultural and aesthetic influences with the techno-heavy elements of contemporary graphic design. PHUNK's multidisciplinary approach moves freely across borders, celebrating global connectivity in the post-industrial age through creative works that span art, design, fashion, publishing, music and film, and that embrace a broad range of media from print, painting, installations, sculpture, video and sound to typography, graphic design and animation.
PHUNK's art draws from both the dystopian and utopian visions of popular culture narratives, and proposes an alternative universe in which duality, diversity and connectivity (or earth, heaven and hell) exist symbiotically and simultaneously. PHUNK's multimedia series such as 'Control Chaos', 'New World' and 'Electricity' present new urban mythologies populated by a range of fantastical creatures, both humorous and sinister, each with their own iconography and attributes. As the inherent values of these disparate citizens collide and conflate, it is ultimately the power of love (according to its various interpretations) that keeps everything from imploding.
PHUNK's art has been featured in numerous biennale, museum and gallery exhibitions internationally, including the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, the Animamix Biennial and the London Design Festival. PHUNK has also worked with major brands such as Nike, Diesel, Casio G-Shock, Levi's, Uniqlo and MTV as well as with emerging designers and alternative street labels. With a strong emphasis on artistic collaboration, PHUNK has collaborated with artists as diverse as the Rolling Stones and pop artist Keiichi Tanaami. In 2005, PHUNK was honoured by the Singapore History Museum with a ten year retrospective exhibition, 'Decade of Decadence', and in 2007 received the President's Design Award Designer of the Year prize in recognition of their trailblazing impact on the development of the Singapore design field.