The National Art Gallery, Singapore

Introducing the Conservators

May 27th, 2010

The Her­it­age Con­ser­va­tion Centre (HCC) paint­ings con­ser­va­tion team is com­prised of four girls and a lucky guy: our con­ser­vator Mar, assist­ant con­ser­vat­ors Selina, Diana and Lynn, and Anthony. Com­ing from diverse back­grounds, we bounce off know­ledge from one another.

from left to right: Selina, Diana, Anthony, Mar and Lynn

Hav­ing trav­elled and worked as a con­ser­vator in vari­ous cit­ies in Europe and Aus­tralia, Mar Gomez, out zesty Span­iard, heads the team.

A feisty Indone­sian who dis­covered con­ser­va­tion in Aus­tralia, Selina Halim, was a prac­ti­cing artist before join­ing us!

Anthony Lau, with the most know­ledge of the col­lec­tions, has been work­ing at HCC for many years.

And lastly, our two young addi­tions – Diana Tay, a semi-struggling artist; and Lynn Chua, who was test­ing out Milo powders as a chem­ist before she decided to con­vert into becom­ing a part of our team.

Together, we sup­port all the museums under the National Her­it­age Board (NHB), namely the National Museum of Singa­pore (NMS), Asian Civil­isa­tion Museum (ACM), the Per­ana­kan Museum (TPM), Singa­pore Art Museum (SAM), the National Art Gal­lery, Singa­pore (TNAGS), as well as 8Q. If there are any art­works involving any­thing with paint that need to be dis­played or go on loan – we are respons­ible for the main­ten­ance and care of it. Sounds a hand­ful, but by work­ing in a team, and along­side other behind-the-scene staff – other con­ser­vat­ors, cur­at­ors, regis­trars, col­lec­tion officers and exhib­i­tion dis­play team – we are the panders of your hun­ger for art.

Every day we juggle dif­fer­ent aspects of a conservator’s job: doc­u­ment­a­tion, con­ser­va­tion treat­ments, exhib­i­tion liaison and sup­port, con­di­tion check­ing, check­ing for pest and mould occur­rences, envir­on­mental mon­it­or­ing, out­reach pro­gramme, read­ing the latest con­ser­va­tion updates, writ­ing reports and research pub­lic­a­tions, and lots of think­ing that goes in the pro­cess. No doubt it’s a lot of work, but it is also a LOT of fun.

We come across new chal­lenges — with every new art­work and arte­fact that arrives at our door, and some­times, but not always, uniden­ti­fi­able pests that we encounter along with it. New dilem­mas that come with decisions we have to make before we start each con­ser­va­tion treat­ments, are no easy feat.

To be a paint­ing con­ser­vator, often we have to think and func­tion very much like
an artist, his­tor­ian, anthro­po­lo­gist, chem­ist, sci­ent­ist, designer,engineer, framer, teacher, doc­tor, and nurse. Some­times, we have to be all at the same time! It helps us to nur­ture and care for every art­works indis­crim­in­at­ingly and love them unconditionally.

Though most of our work is invis­ible, you may spot us occa­sion­ally at the museums, examin­ing the weird envir­on­mental mon­it­or­ing gad­gets, inspect­ing the art­works and mak­ing sure they are safe, or just simply enjoy­ing the museums and the work that we’ve accomplished!

This blog is an insight into what our typ­ical day in the lab is like.

Hope you enjoy it!