Anamorphosis

I learned a new word today - anamorphosis - which means a distorted or fragmented image that comes together at a single point. I would otherwise just call it optical illusion. I am responding to the works of Matthew Ngui, a Singapore-born artist residing both in Perth and Singapore. At the basement gallery of NMS (when will the National Museum of Singapore be so well-established that the people on the street will know it by its acronym?), there is an exhibition of his works from 1980s to the present. I particularly like his most-representative piece - The Chair. It took me some time to realise that the real art work is not the solitary wooden chair placed against the wall, but the fragments of pieces of wood scattered on the floor, on the wall, the painted chair parts on the vertical wall corner. Watching the video in which Ngui interacts with his 'chair', I suddenly realise that, if you place yourself at a certain point in space, the fragmented pieces form a complete chair! Okay, so where is this point? I can't just leave without discovering for myself. I tiptoed, I squatted, I knelt, I shifted to the left, and to the right. Hey presto, got it! Quite pleased with myself. Now that's what I call a successful artist to evoke from the audience a response, which probably looks quite silly to a bystander.