Singapore erotic artist sees dim future for gay art

By Melanie Lee

SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) - Artist Martin Loh's flat is full of large, bright paintings of mothers and children, but tucked away furtively in a corner are sketches of men kissing.

Loh, 56, is famous for his cheery portrayals of Peranakan women, or Chinese migrants to the Malay peninsula. But it is his vivid homo-erotic paintings and sketches that have earned him notoriety in Singapore, where sex between men is illegal.

Working out of his cramped apartment, which is also his studio, Loh worked for eight months on his new collection, titled "Pain to Pleasure", inspired by bondage and sadomasochism.

The collection, which was to be exhibited in August this year, was cancelled last month by the gallery that had given the green-light to show his Peranakan exhibition the same month.

"We live in the Victorian times, anything that is beyond the missionary position is frowned upon," Loh told Reuters.

"The gallery is exercising some kind of self-censorship partly based on misplaced business considerations. The assumption that this will not sell is absurd."

"Pain to Pleasure" consists of 24 black pen-line sketches depicting nude men in various bondage and sadomasochism poses. Loh, who started dabbling in homo-erotic art in 1991, has held three private art exhibitions over the last five years, usually featuring naked men in sexual acts.

"It appears that there is no future for this kind of art," Loh said. "What I have is a situation that the space I enjoyed in the past, I don't enjoy now. It seems like a retrogression."