Zhang Fuming‘s solo exhibition WEIGHT opens at Gallery 1, LASALLE College of the Arts on 7 November 2026 and runs to 15 December 2026. If you’ve ever assumed that a woodcut’s real destination is a sheet of paper, this Singapore show makes a compelling case for looking at the block instead.
LASALLE says the Young Artist Award recipient is challenging the notion that woodcut must culminate in a print, with the carved wooden block itself standing as the completed work. In a medium where the print usually gets the wall and the glory, that’s a cheeky reversal of the usual order!
The Soul Is in the Block
For anyone new to the craft, the key word here is matrix, which is the printmaker’s term for the surface that carries the image. In woodcut, that means the block of wood, and it’s where Zhang believes the serious work happens.
“I think there has always been an urge to present the carved block as the final work, even from the very beginning of my practice,” Zhang told DANAMIC in his interview answers.
That detail matters, because WEIGHT could easily be mistaken for a sudden conceptual swerve. By his own account, the instinct was there from the start, which makes this show feel more like an artist finally acting on a long-held hunch.
His reasoning is refreshingly physical. “I’ve always felt that the matrix is where much of the soul of the work resides,” said Zhang. “After all, it is the surface on which the artist spends considerable time and effort physically constructing an image, through a process of cutting, removing and modifying material.”
It’s a persuasive argument, since nobody would call the block a mere tool after hearing it put that way. Every cut and every removal happens there, and the wood holds the record of all that effort.
Printmaking’s Backstage Problem
Zhang’s complaint is about visibility more than technique. “Yet, paradoxically, within the traditional discipline of printmaking, the matrix is often treated as something that remains behind the scenes,” he said.
Paradoxically is the word doing the heavy lifting in that sentence. The object that absorbs all those hours of cutting is the one that traditionally stays out of view, and WEIGHT is his answer to that imbalance.
LASALLE’s exhibition listing carries a statement from Zhang that pushes the idea further. “Woodcut is a contemporary visual language grounded in discipline, duration and material resistance,” he says there. “In WEIGHT, the image is inseparable from the conditions that produce it: labour, pressure, repetition, hesitation, and the accumulation of irreversible decisions.”
Irreversible is the word to carry into the gallery, because once wood is cut away, it stays gone. That’s what gives the exhibition title its logic, and it’s why a carved surface can read as a long chain of commitments rather than a stage in a production process.
Nearly 20 Works, Each One of One
According to LASALLE, WEIGHT brings together nearly 20 works, most of them newly developed, with support from the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award grant.
Each work is an edition of one, meaning only a single version of it exists. That’s a neat twist for a medium so closely tied to the print, because a printing block is the very thing that’s supposed to make more than one of something possible.
Zhang won the Young Artist Award from the National Arts Council Singapore in 2024, so this is a show arriving with some institutional weight behind it (pun fully intended). You’d be spending your time with one artist’s single line of thought across one gallery.
Rice Bowls, Baby Toys, and Barbed Wire
If the phrase “material resistance” makes you nervous, relax, because the subject matter is far homelier than the theory suggests.
The exhibition listing adds doors, locks, walls, baby toys, a trophy, and a bird on barbed wire to that list, describing images and objects drawn from his domestic and working life. That mix is what makes the show sound so appealing, as a trophy and a toddler’s toy are about as far from art-school abstraction as you can get.
The catalogue titles keep that plain-spoken streak, with names like Typing, Bowls and Grains, Remainder, and Yield. Bowls and Grains is the one to look out for first, given that the rice bowl is among Zhang’s stated reference points and few objects are more instantly familiar to a Singapore visitor. Remainder is a close second, because the word sits so neatly beside his argument about what’s left behind after the cutting is done.
Full Circle at LASALLE
There’s a homecoming story here as well. Zhang is a LASALLE alumnus, and the college says WEIGHT marks his return more than a decade after he first encountered woodcut at the institution. His interview with DANAMIC starts from that same point, which makes the choice of venue feel earned rather than convenient.
He’s also looking out for whoever comes next. For a show about what labour costs, sending half the proceeds to students who are short of money is a fitting gesture.
Before You Head Down
Plan around the closures, as the gallery shuts on Sundays, public holidays, and during College closures, so a Sunday art date won’t work here. Weekday evenings are your friend, since the doors stay open until 7pm.
🗓️ Date: Saturday, 7 November to Tuesday, 15 December 2026
⏰ Time: 12pm to 7pm, Monday to Saturday
📍 Location: Gallery 1, LASALLE College of the Arts
🚪 Closed: Sundays, public holidays, and College closures
🎟️ Entry: Free, open to the public
🪵 Works: Nearly 20, most newly developed, each an edition of one
Most of us have only ever seen the end product of a woodcut, so the chance to stand in front of the surface where all those irreversible decisions were made is worth a detour. Pop by Gallery 1 between 7 November and 15 December, and check the official WEIGHT page or LASALLE’s What’s On listings before you go. Then see whether Zhang can convince you that the block was the main event all along!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Zhang Fuming.
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