EVENTS

Between Stillness and Motion: Presenting Artist Ma Dongmin’s First Solo Exhibition in Singapore

Special feature by Leica Singapore
05 Jun 2026

Contemporary artist Ma Dongmin unveils a luminous exhibition that blurs the boundaries between photography and painting at Leica Singapore South Beach Quarter.

At Leica Singapore’s flagship store at South Beach Quarter, time seems to slow down. Nestled in a bustling neighbourhood and housed within a site entwined with the country's colonial past, this Leica shop, which opened early last year, feels less like a store and more like a cultural space reimagined for the present.

MD for Leica Camera Asia Pacific Sunil Kaul with Ma Dongmin at Leica Store South Beach Quarter, Singapore

It is here where Art Vault Asia and Leica Singapore will present the exhibition Fire Horse – The Decisive Moment. For one weekend only, from 6 to 7 June 2026, the space will showcase 23 original paintings from Beijing-based artist Ma Dongmin’s Blue Fire Horse Collection 2026, as well as new artwork. The exhibition marks Leica’s first oil-on-canvas presentation in Southeast Asia, which will undoubtedly start a conversation on art, photography and the lines blurred between the two. 

For Sunil Kaur, Managing Director of Leica Camera Asia Pacific, this was always the intention behind the South Beach Quarter space. “The store was never intended to function purely as a retail environment,” he explains. “It is conceived as a cultural space where photography, design, art, and conversation converge.” 

Exhibiting Ma Dongmin’s Blue Fire Horse collection deepens that philosophy. “His works invite visitors to slow down and reflect on movement, stillness, tension, and emotion,” Kaul explains. “These ideas resonate deeply with Leica’s way of seeing.”

Ma Dongmin with his Leica Q2 Camera in his Beijing Studio

That sense of stillness charged with anticipation runs through the exhibition. Ma’s horses are suspended between rest and release, captured in fleeting intervals where tension and energy gathers beneath the surface. Rendered in his signature cerulean blue, the horses appear at once ethereal and cinematic, carrying an emotional intensity so realistic that it feels almost human. 

“Though it appears I am painting a horse, at times it feels as though I am painting myself,” muses Ma. “I enter my spiritual world completely.”

Sapphire Stillness
Registered Kiss

While painting is his main medium, Ma’s creative process begins outside his studio. Using a Leica Q camera, Ma photographs horses across the world – from Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang to Saudi Arabia and even the English countryside while exhibiting at Cambridge University. He shoots them in motion, at rest, and in quiet moments of connection. “I capture the brilliant, fleeting moments of horses,” he explains. “These are shot in color. When transitioning to the canvas, I contemplate the composition and how to convey the spirit of the horse.

For Leica, this methodology created a natural creative synergy. “Photography, for him, was not merely documentary,” Kaul shares. “It became a way of understanding rhythm, movement, and anticipation, qualities that are equally central to photography itself.”

That dialogue between mediums is perhaps most powerfully expressed in Ma’s painting entitled Registered Kiss, which is being presented in Singapore for the first time. Inspired by Alfred Eisenstaedt’s iconic 1945 photograph V-J Day in Times Square, originally captured on a Leica IIIa camera, the work reinterprets one of the twentieth century’s most recognizable images through Ma’s dreamy blue palette.

Johan Bergendorff - Art Vault Asia, Ma Domgmin, Sunil Kaul - Leica Camera Asia Pacific, Joseph Bakhsh - Art Vault Asia

“I was deeply moved by the image,” Ma says of Eisenstaedt’s photograph. “It symbolizes the end of World War II and radiates humanity’s love for peace and life.”

In Ma’s hands, the spontaneous embrace becomes something more contemplative — not a mere recreation of history, but an exploration of how memory evolves over time. “His paintings become an extension of photographic seeing,” says Kaul. “Both are rooted in recognizing a fleeting instant where emotion, composition, and instinct align.”

Even Ma’s distinctive palette speaks to this pursuit of precision and emotion. Predominantly rendered in shades of blues and violets, each canvas is punctuated with subtle flashes of red or magenta. “Blue is the most difficult color to master,” Ma explains. “A touch of red makes the blue appear even more beautiful, and conversely, the blue highlights the red.” The result is a body of work that feels suspended between permanence and motion. 

Fire Horse – The Decisive Moment will exhibit at Leica’s flagship store at South Beach Quarter from 6 to 7 June 2026. Register here for free admission. 

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