Giving Elusive Sensations a Form

A moment can stay with us after its details disappear. We remember how we felt, even when the scene itself has blurred. Emotion absorbs our attention, and the world takes on the character of what we feel. Christabel Png's photographic abstractions give this dimension of perception a tangible presence.

Working from filmed fragments of personal experience, Png transforms recorded scenes through movement, distortion and colour. Familiar appearances dissolve into luminous streaks, speckled tones and expanses of shadow. The images retain traces of the recorded world even as their subjects become indistinct.

“I feel intensely, but I was taught not to disclose it directly. Privacy and emotional restraint were valued as discipline. It's hard to break that habit even as I explore it. It has become part of me. The work expresses time that has come and gone, but still lingers on.”

Raised in military environments in Singapore, Png later built a career in user experience design, working on national digital systems before pursuing contemporary art. Now based in London, she makes work in which otherworldly softness envelops rigid structure. Across her practice, there is a repeated negotiation between what is revealed and concealed.

Her work reinterprets the atmospheric qualities of classical East Asian ink-wash painting through modern technology and industrial processes. Digitally transformed images acquire physical presence through reactive-dye printing on translucent silk. Traditionally used as a painting surface and in clothing that continues to express cultural identity, silk carries histories of trade and migration, alongside its own transformation from cocoon to cloth.

Light passes through the fabric, allowing the surrounding environment to participate in the image. Colours, contrast and transparency shift with changing daylight and the works' placement within a space. Wooden supports and steel components establish firm edges and structural order, while the silk introduces fluidity and movement.

In selected works, Png draws on gold leaf's spiritual and symbolic significance, using its luminosity to transform sites of damage into expressions of aesthetic refinement.

Sound extends her practice into duration and shared presence. Within repetition and restraint, subtle changes become audible. Png's electronic compositions may begin with a single note, two alternating chords or a recurring loop. Gradual shifts in texture, density and rhythm transform familiar phrases into something newly strange. Performed live, these compositions become experiences shaped by the presence of the room and its listeners.

Across image, silk and sound, Png gives emotional intensity a form that can remain. Sometimes the encounter is tranquil; sometimes it is insistent or disorienting.

For Png, art offers the freedom to make something beautiful without having to explain why it deserves to exist. What remains is the atmosphere of a moment overtaken by sensation.

Christabel Png (b. 1993, Singapore) is a London-based artist working across photographic abstraction, silk and sound. She holds an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art and is a finalist for the 2026 Ingram Prize, presented by The Ingram Collection. Her work was shortlisted for the inaugural Jaguar Lyons Award and longlisted in two categories of the Women in Art Prize. Her background spans communications, technology, public-sector innovation—and the pursuit of artistic and intellectual freedom.