The Scale of Black was the inaugural exhibition for Valentine Willie Fine Art’s Singapore gallery. The exhibition showcased monochrome drawings from a group of established artists selected from the gallery’s wide regional network.

Though some of the artists, such as Singaporeans Jimmy Ong and, to a lesser extent, Tang Da Wu, have made drawing a central part of their practice for many years, others, such as Indonesian Agus Suwage and Thailand’s Vasan Sitthiket are perhaps better known for their painting. Yet whether habitually associated with the medium or not, all the selected artists demonstrated, through their contributions, drawing’s extraordinary ability to convey immediacy, drama, and psychological intensity in a way no other mode of artistic communication can. However dark and distressing some of the themes considered by the artists, the drawings in The Scale of Black provide ample evidence for the enduring quality of the medium and its place as a pillar of artistic expression in Southeast Asian contemporary art.