Sitting on the fence

A Solo Exhibition by Genevieve Leong
Curated by Berny Tan at starch
31 May – 29 June 2025

In her largest solo exhibition to date—and the first to bring together multiple bodies of work—Genevieve Leong inhabits the space of indecision, embracing its ambiguities, precarities, and fluctuations as points of departure.

With approaches refined over more than a decade of artmaking, she translates the immaterial into installations comprising found objects, handmade forms, and occasionally text. Using strategies of tension and balance, each work offers an intimate exploration of the nuances of uncertainty.

Here, the delicate position of being “on the fence” is not born of weakness or apathy. Instead, it is a deliberate choice to pause and linger; to sit with rather than take a stand. The inconclusive thus becomes a place of potential, where the absence of resolve leaves room for a poetics of hesitation.

Installation views of ‘Sitting on the fence’, 2025
All photos by Marvin Tang

List of artworks in the exhibition
(in chronological order of when they were deemed resolved by the artist)

  1. Sitting on the fence, 2023

  2. If we spoke in pauses, 2023 (remade 2025)

  3. Surfaces of rest, 2024–25

  4. The sensation of floating, 2025

  5. Interlude, 2025

  6. Comfort is confusing, 2025

  7. Recipe #06: How to make a good decision, 2025

  8. Dilemma Paintings, 2025

  9. A pocket dictionary of hesitation, 2025

Sitting on the fence
2023

First created for an alcove in the artist’s home when she was based in Switzerland, this corner-mounted ceramic shelf necessarily resides at the juncture of two perpendicular surfaces, belonging neither to one side nor the other. Eventually called Sitting on the fence—from which this exhibition takes its title—the shelf is both the earliest work in the exhibition and the first that the visitor encounters. It sets the tone for the other bodies of work that follow: a meditation on hesitation, ambivalence, and the quiet assertion of existing between poles.

If we spoke in pauses
2023, remade 2025

Composed entirely using commas—a punctuation mark that functions as a pause—this work imagines hesitation as a form of language. Originally conceived as a poem of the same title, it has been reinterpreted and enlarged for the exhibition space’s expansive windows, presented as a multiplicity of white commas scattered across the glass. Silence is rendered visible: a proposition that we might speak not in declarations, but in fragments, intervals, and unfinished thoughts.

Surfaces of rest
2024–25

In this series, nine grab handles salvaged from Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) trains have been repurposed as habitats for object landscapes. Made from polymer clay, the abstract forms balance precariously within the frames of the handholds, the clear glue used to attach them left plain to see. Though displayed at rest, the handles still possess the possibility of being shifted out of position, gesturing towards the everyday thresholds between action and inaction, stability and sway.

The sensation of floating
2025

Occupying the centre of the gallery, this shallow pool measuring 3 by 3 metres holds multiple sculptural assemblages that drift freely on the surface. Constructed from found objects, both organic and inorganic, each assemblage balances itself on the water, occasionally brushing against another in unpredictable encounters. The installation explores how floating can be analogous to the emotional state of indecision, offering a contemplative space to dwell in the gentle poetry of weightlessness.

Interlude
2025

This intervention unfolds as a wooden fence that demarcates—without dictating—possible paths through the exhibition. Shielded with translucent panels of fabric that both obscure and hint at what lies beyond, it is also in parts uncovered to reveal various vantage points into the space. Even so, small objects appear in unexpected corners, serving as distractions from the viewing experience. At once guide and interruption, Interlude invites visitors to embrace uncertainty, reorienting the otherwise straightforward ways in which exhibitions are usually navigated.

Comfort is confusing
2025

This sculptural installation takes inspiration from how a restless person might switch between different seating positions in search of comfort. Readymade structures—originally parts of household objects—interact with warped ceramic forms, their lines further echoed by an existing L-shaped metal railing that delineates a space below the staircase. Recalling the variation in human postures as a body attempts to adapt to its environment, the work explores malleability as both a state of coping and an act of contouring.

Recipe #06: How to make a good decision
2025

Upon a magnetic base levitates a small bowl, containing a vase with a slim foam arm attached. The rotations of the bowl, which pauses and changes direction arbitrarily, cause the arm to point to different objects placed around it. By leveraging this randomness, the work playfully declares itself a foolproof device for decision-making, cutting out the time-consuming deliberations that come with conscious choice.

Since 2018, the Recipe series has accumulated a number of short-form explorations that the artist sees as outliers in her practice. While grounded in a similar sensibility, a recipe might possess a humour or absurdity that does not surface in her primary bodies of work.

Dilemma Paintings
2025

Developed alongside Recipe #06: How to make a good decision, this series of wall-mounted ceramic paintings have been imprinted repeatedly with Y (yes) and N (no)—hypothetically able to function as devices for decision-making, while also representing a constant wavering between two opposing choices.

A pocket dictionary of non-understanding, 2019
A pocket dictionary of things misunderstood, 2021
A pocket dictionary of word slips, 2023 
A pocket dictionary of hesitation, 2025

This series of pocket dictionaries is a long-standing project that forms the conceptual backbone of the artist’s practice. Each edition reimagines a vocabulary through the artist’s personal definitions. The works propose an alternative lexicon shaped by uncertainty, error, and nuance, which the artist can then reference as a method of developing new artistic ideas.

All pocket dictionaries—including the fourth and latest title published for this exhibition—are being shown together for the first time. As the artist has done in past showcases, each edition is translated into a mini-installation that shapes the browsing experience.

View the individual publications here.