Exhibition dates: March 29 – April 4, 2007

XanaduART Gallery is delighted to present FUSION, a painting and photography exhibition by Gek Kheng and David Whitworth. The exhibition, which opens today (March 29th) at 6pm, aims to raise funds for a new Arts and Crafts Workshop at the Lotus Children’s Centre. The British Ambassador to Mongolia, Mr. Christopher Wyndham Osborne, will speak at the opening event.

About Lotus Children’s Centre

The Lotus Children’s Centre (www.lotuschild.org) was established in 1995 by Didi Kalika, an Australian, to give homeless Mongolian children a chance to have a better future. The Centre, situated in Yarmag just out of Ulaanbaatar city, provides the children with a family environment by creating small family groups, each with 8 to 10 children to one housemother. 

Recognising the importance of education in breaking the poverty cycle, the centre has developed its own kindergarten and school. The Centre has a small group of children with learning difficulties.  The establishment of the Arts and Crafts Workshop is primarily aimed at providing craft skills for these children with special needs to help them to secure a livelihood. The new workshop will also be used for art lessons for children at the Centre.

The Artists

The artists, Gek Kheng and David Whitworth, arrived in Mongolia in mid-August 2006 and have been pursuing their interests in oil painting and photography, using Mongolia as their inspiration. Gek is a British trained Singaporean artist and David, an engineer, is working in Ulaanbaatar as an adviser to an Asian Development Bank funded project. 

Twenty six oil paintings based on the themes of Mongolian landscapes and portraiture will be exhibited, all created in Mongolia by Gek. The paintings are mainly abstract.

David has been taking photographs of Mongolian landscapes and around Ulaanbaatar and loading these photographic encounters on a blog at www.davidvso.blogspot.com. The postings from the blog will be on display during the exhibition. In addition 12 framed photographs and a digital display of the photographs will be exhibited. Gek’s art can also be seen on her blog at www.gek-art.blogspot.com/.

SELECTED WORK EXHIBITED: