Filipino-Chinese artist Maria Angelica Tan talks to Lifestyle Asia about her debut solo exhibition in Singapore, mark-making, and the practice that shaped it.
In the opening of Genesis, light arrives before anything else. The heavens and earth have already been created, but they remain “formless and empty,” shrouded in darkness. Only when light appears does the world begin to emerge. It’s a striking image: before this primordial first light reveals the world, it already exists, full of possibility, yet still unseen. Far beyond its biblical origins, light has remained one of humanity’s most enduring metaphors. We speak of enlightenment, of seeing the light, of a lightbulb moment. We use light to describe instances when understanding, memory, or possibility suddenly come into view. And it’s within this tradition that First Light—the first solo exhibition in Singapore by Filipino-Chinese artist Maria Angelica Tan—also known as Mica, finds its own meaning.
Rather than depicting specific places, Maria creates imagined landscapes that evoke memory, sensation, and what Columns Gallery describes as “the quiet wonder of seeing.” Mica shares with Lifestyle Asia: “I don’t think of imagination as a retreat from reality. I actually think it’s the very force through which reality is shaped and made meaningful.”
Yet for Maria, “first light” goes beyond metaphor. Before there was even an exhibition, there was simply the practice itself. For years, she painted late into the night, often working until dawn. “It was always the first light of day that told me it was time to rest,” she recalls. “It became a reminder of what painting has always been underneath everything else: a grounding force, a quiet purpose.”
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How First Light Came To Light
That quiet purpose found its way into First Light, though not in the way most exhibitions do. The paintings existed before a gallery was involved. Mica studied both Economics and Visual Arts at Columbia University in New York before beginning a career in management consulting. Yet painting was something she never left behind, exhibiting in several pop-ups and group shows. After returning to Southeast Asia to pursue art full-time and begin her Master of Fine Arts in Singapore, the collection of pieces that would become First Light emerged.
“Honestly, this body of work had been quietly taking shape long before Columns Gallery ever entered the picture,” Mica says. “By the time I showed my paintings to Mr. Dong Jo, the gallery’s president, they were already complete, having no expectations that he’d even resonate with my work. I hadn’t made them with an exhibition in mind. They came out of a much more personal place, my move, and everything that shifted stirred up in me.”
The Painting Practice Of Maria Angelica Tan
Despite being a solo debut, the exhibition serves not as a starting point, but as the natural outcome of a practice Maria had already committed herself to. “It began with a simple question I kept asking myself: How do I express what painting truly means to me?” she says. “And the answer, I realized, was in the everyday, painting every single day, without exception, and never taking that discipline for granted.”
That philosophy extends beyond the act of painting and into the materials she chooses to paint with. Central to her practice is “mark-making,” combining the strokes of traditional brushes with marks using ordinary objects. “As I kept working with these ordinary tools, something shifted in how I saw them,” she explains. “Brushing my teeth in the morning, I’d suddenly notice the toothbrush in my hand. Eating a meal, I’d become aware of the fork, the spoon. Putting on makeup, I’d really see the eyebrow brush and the particular mark it could make.”
These acts of noticing became the foundation of First Light. “Using these tools lets me stay spontaneous, stay reflective, and maybe most importantly, stay appreciative of the ordinary,” Mica says. The resulting paintings carry that same attentiveness, shaped as much by the rhythm of everyday life as by the imagined landscapes that gradually emerge–and there was morning, and there was evening, and there was that first light.
What Maria Angelica Tan Hopes Viewers Take Away
If First Light begins with Mica’s own ritual of painting until dawn, it ultimately extends an invitation to the viewer as well: to pause, look a little longer, and become more attentive to what’s already there. It’s a welcome invitation in a world shaped by speed, distraction, and the growing presence of artificial intelligence.
“I think it matters as a reminder to actually be present in the moment,” Mica says. “The world keeps changing so quickly, especially with AI moving into nearly every part of life now. But painting is really the one place where I don’t use it at all… So when someone stands in front of a painting and slows down enough to feel the surface, to sit inside the atmosphere for a while, I think that’s a small but real act of presence. It’s one of the few spaces left that asks nothing of you except to be there, fully, in that moment.”
That idea returns us to the meaning of First Light itself. Light doesn’t create the world so much as make it visible. In the same way, Mica’s paintings don’t ask viewers to escape reality, but to notice it more fully. “More than anything, I hope people leave having felt, even briefly, the power of painting itself: how a painted surface can hold a deep serenity, laced through with energetic movement, carried through atmosphere, space, mark, and color,” she says. “It might only last for that moment, standing in front of the work. But I think that’s enough. If someone can feel that quiet fullness even for a second, I’ll consider the show a success.”
“First Light” runs from July 1 to August 8, 2026, at The Columns Gallery in Singapore.
Photos courtesy of Maria Angelica Tan and The Columns Gallery
Frequently Asked Questions
Maria Angelica Tan is a Filipino-Chinese artist whose work explores imagination, memory, and perception through painting. A graduate of Columbia University in New York with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Visual Arts, she is now pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Singapore.
First Light is Maria Angelica Tan’s debut solo exhibition in Singapore at Columns Gallery. Through imagined landscapes, the exhibition reflects on painting as a daily practice, inviting viewers to slow down and experience the “quiet wonder of seeing.”
First Light, Maria Angelica Tan’s first solo exhibition in Singapore, is on view at Columns Gallery.
Maria Angelica Tan says the paintings in First Light were not created with an exhibition in mind. Instead, they emerged from her move from New York back to Southeast Asia and her commitment to painting every day.
Maria Angelica Tan hopes visitors leave with a renewed appreciation for the power of painting. Through color, atmosphere, and mark-making, she wants viewers to slow down, be present, and experience what she describes as a “quiet fullness.”
