Milk: Maria Farrar
Forthcoming exhibition
Overview
Opening reception: 16 May 2026, 4 - 7 pm*
(*The artist will not be present)
Ota Fine Arts Singapore is pleased to present “Milk”, a solo exhibition by Maria Farrar. This exhibition brings together 9 new paintings and 4 works on paper, which reflect significant developments in Farrar’s practice following her last solo presentation, Girls being girls, at Ota Fine Arts Shanghai in 2023.
In contrast to the paintings from her previous presentation which looked at ‘girlhood’ as a social and linguistic construct, Farrar’s new body of works turn inward. Here, the artist takes the Seven Deadly Sins as her point of departure; she approaches them not as moral categories but as presences that exist within her as independent creatures. Often dismissed and ignored, what they crave is communication, and the paintings become records of Farrar’s encounters and dialogues with them. The exhibition title “Milk” brings to mind ideas of care and a form of emotional sustenance. It reflects how Farrar approaches these inner presences – not through suppression or judgment, but through attention and reciprocity.
Across the exhibition, recurring motifs such as bread, shoes, mirrors, and flowers evoke themes of desire, envy, and memory, drawn from everyday life and personal experience. Rather than resolving the self into a unified whole, “Milk” opens a space in which multiple presences coexist, reflecting both the complexity of inner life and the evolving possibilities of painting, through an all-encompassing approach.
In contrast to the paintings from her previous presentation which looked at ‘girlhood’ as a social and linguistic construct, Farrar’s new body of works turn inward. Here, the artist takes the Seven Deadly Sins as her point of departure; she approaches them not as moral categories but as presences that exist within her as independent creatures. Often dismissed and ignored, what they crave is communication, and the paintings become records of Farrar’s encounters and dialogues with them. The exhibition title “Milk” brings to mind ideas of care and a form of emotional sustenance. It reflects how Farrar approaches these inner presences – not through suppression or judgment, but through attention and reciprocity.
Across the exhibition, recurring motifs such as bread, shoes, mirrors, and flowers evoke themes of desire, envy, and memory, drawn from everyday life and personal experience. Rather than resolving the self into a unified whole, “Milk” opens a space in which multiple presences coexist, reflecting both the complexity of inner life and the evolving possibilities of painting, through an all-encompassing approach.
