Hilmi Johandi is a visual artist whose practice centers on painting, while expanding into installation and new media. His work explores the processes of framing, fragmentation, and reconstruction, using imagery that draws from Singapore's visual and cultural history. Hilmi composes montages from archival materials-postcards, posters, film stills, and photographs-layering and deconstructing them to interrogate the social and psychological effects of modernization. These fragmented compositions reflect a tension between nostalgia and critique, between personal longing and collective memory.
His recent body of work investigates how familiar and symbolic motifs from Singapore's past-such as seaside resorts, hotel lobbies, and swimming pools-can be repurposed to explore ideas of theatricality, displacement, and desire. In the painting series Landscaped Grounds, Hilmi extracts visual elements from national archives and reassembles them into compositions that mimic theatrical sets. Spatial planes are partitioned, flattened, or ruptured, producing images that feel both staged and uncanny. The resulting landscapes hover between realism and artifice, suggesting both memory and performance.
In contrast, his Destination Image series focuses on smaller-scale paintings that depict isolated motifs cropped from larger scenes. These close-up views probe ideas of pleasure, escape, and representation. By removing the subjects from their original contexts, Hilmi creates a sense of ambiguity and dislocation, prompting viewers to question the constructed nature of visual desire.
Hilmi also works in installation, translating his investigations into immersive spatial experiences. Stagecraft: Sunset by the River (2023), for instance, begins with a two-dimensional image of a scenic sunset, which is transformed through lithography, gouache, and watercolour. The final work-a life-sized UV digital print mounted on exposed wooden structures-recalls a theatrical backdrop. Visitors are encouraged to walk around and into the piece, encountering both the illusion and its supporting framework, thus engaging with the artificiality of spectacle and the mechanisms behind it.
Throughout his practice, Hilmi Johandi examines the mediation of experience through image-making, and how nostalgia and constructed memory function within rapidly modernizing societies. His work oscillates between painterly finesse and conceptual critique, offering viewers a layered and immersive reflection on place, time, and perception.
Biography
1987 Born in Singapore
2007-2009 Dip. Fine Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
2011-2013 B.A. (Hons) Fine Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
2018 MA Fine Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Landscaped Grounds, Ota Fine Arts, Shanghai, China (2023)
Landscapes and Paradise: Poolscapes, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan (2021)
Stagecraft: Landscapes and Paradise, Ota Fine Arts, Singapore (2019)
Painting Archives, Rumah Lukis, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2019)
An Exposition, President's Young Talents 2018 Exhibition, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2018)
Dusk to Dawn | Fajar ke Senja, Galerie Steph / OCBC Art Space, Singapore (2014)
Selected Group Exhibitions
Singapore Deviation: Wander with Art Through the Rail Corridor, Rail Corridor, Singapore (2023)
Guest Relations, Jameel Arts Centre, Jaddaf Waterfront, Dubai (2023)
[im]print, STORAGE, Bangkok, Thailand (2023)
EMOTIONAL ASIA: Miyatsu Daisuke Collection x Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Genjuuan temple, Fukuoka, Japan (2022)
Progressive Disintegrations, Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film, Singapore (2020)
Selected Awards
Young Artist Award, National Arts Council of Singapore, Singapore (2018)
Goh Chok Tong Youth Promise Award (2017)
Selected Collections
Longlati Foundation, Shanghai, China
ASE Foundation, Shanghai, China
UBS Art Collection, Singapore
Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
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Hilmi JohandiLandscapes & Paradise XI (Poolscapes no. 6), 2021Oil on linen122 x 152 cm
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Hilmi JohandiLandscapes & Paradise IX (Poolscapes no. 4), 2021Oil on linen160 x 130 cm, 120 x 80 cm (2 panels)
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Hilmi JohandiMy Raffles Experience (2), 2021Oil on linen150 x 170 cm
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Hilmi JohandiLandscapes & Paradise XII (A couple dancing at sunset), 2021Oil on linen152 x 122 cm
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Hilmi JohandiLandscapes & Paradise XIII (City Dwellers), 2021Oil on linen160 x 200 cm
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Hilmi JohandiTwo minutes of island paradise (Sun set to rise) n.2, 2021Single channel video, sound2'15"
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Hilmi JohandiLandscapes and Paradise V (Poolscapes), 2020Oil on linen170 x 130 cm
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Hilmi JohandiLandscapes and Paradise VI (View of a garden with a cascading waterfall), 2020Oil on linen150 x 200 cm
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Time
Chen Wei, ChillChill, Masanori Handa, Tsuyoshi Hisakado, Hilmi Johandi, Yayoi Kusama, Guo-Liang Tan 13 Oct 2020 - 31 Jan 2021 SingaporeOta Fine Arts Singapore is delighted to present 'Time', a group exhibition featuring seven artists from China, Japan and Singapore: Chen Wei, ChillChill, Masanori Handa, Tsuyoshi Hisakado, Hilmi Johandi, Yayoi...Read more -
Singapura
Zai Kuning, Hilmi Johandi, Guo-Liang Tan, Liao Jiekai, Jason Lim 10 Oct - 21 Nov 2020 TokyoOta Fine Arts Tokyo is delighted to present 'Singapura', a group exhibition featuring a selection of five artists from Singapore, the city-state known for its diverse mix of cultures. These...Read more -
Post Art Fair
Maria Farrar, Chris Huen, Hilmi Johandi, Yayoi Kusama, Nobuaki Takekawa, Guo-Liang Tan 13 Mar - 25 Apr 2020 SingaporeOta Fine Arts Singapore is delighted to present 'Post Art Fair', a group exhibition featuring a robust selection of our represented artists. In response to the cancellation of Art Basel...Read more -
Hilmi Johandi | Stagecraft: Landscapes and Paradise
Hilmi Johandi 16 Aug - 28 Sep 2019 SingaporeOta Fine Arts Singapore is delighted to present 'Stagecraft: Landscapes and Paradise', a solo exhibition featuring new works by Hilmi Johandi, including 7 paintings and 1 video work. This exhibition...Read more
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Art Jakarta 2022
Booth B6 26 Aug 2022Ota Fine Arts participates in 'Art Jakarta 2022', from 26th to 28th August 2022. Ota Fine Arts is located at Booth B6 , presenting artworks...Read more -
Hilmi Johandi
Artist Residency at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore 23 Jul 2022Hilmi Johandi is currently an artist-in-residence for Nanyang Technical University Singapore Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA). Artist Residency: 4 April – 31 August...Read more -
"S.E.A. Focus 2021", Singapore
14 Jan 2022Ota Fine Arts will participate in 'S.E.A. Focus 2021'. The gallery will feature the latest artworks of Hilmi Johandi (b. 1987, Singapore), Zai Kuning (b....Read more -
Hilmi Johandi
"Inside the Wild Cube" Progressive Disintegrations, Singapore 4 Jan 2022Hilmi Johandi is part of the exhibition 'Inside the Wild Cube', conceptualized by the collaborative group Progressive Disintegrations, comprising of Chua Chye Teck, Marc Gloede,...Read more