BEVERLY YONG Director

Beverly Yong (b. Kuala Lumpur, 1974) graduated from Cambridge University in 1995, reading English Literature and Art History. She went on to gain a Masters degree in Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University the following year.

She joined Valentine Willie Fine Art Kuala Lumpur as Curator shortly after its foundation in 1996. From 1998 to 1999, she worked in the Chinese Department at Christies’ London, returning at the end of 1999 to become a partner and Managing Director of Valentine Willie Fine Art, leaving this post to co-found RogueArt in 2008.

She has over ten years’ art curatorial and management experience, curating and organising over two hundred exhibitions and projects both locally and in the region. She has worked closely with leading Malaysian artists including Nirmala Dutt Shanmughalingam, the late Redza Piyadasa, the late Joseph Tan, Syed Ahmad Jamal, Wong Hoy Cheong, Chang Fee Ming, Jalaini Abu Hassan, and Yee I-Lann, as well as a broad range of artists from across Southeast Asia and beyond, including Putu Sutawijaya, Agus Suwage, the Jendela Group, Geraldine Javier, Natee Utarit, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Tang Da Wu, Lindy Lee and Shaun Gladwell, among many others.

She has headed a number of major institutional touring projects, including: Chang Fee Ming – Mekong at Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Chiangmai University Art Museum and Galeri Nasional, Jakarta (2004); Wong Hoy Cheong at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2004); Selamat Datang ke Malaysia at Gallery 4A, Sydney (2007); Between Generations : 50 Years Across Modern Art in Malaysia at Asian Art Museum, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, and Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang (2007). She has worked with institutions in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia, and has also brought Malaysian and Southeast Asian artists abroad to major events such as ARCO Madrid (2003) and Melbourne Art Fair (2006).

She has served as a judge for competitions such as the Young Contemporaries Competition, National Art Gallery (2001), and is on the selection committee for the RBS Malihom Artist-in-Residency programme. She has been regularly invited to speak to both private and public audiences on the local and regional art scene, most recently giving “An Introduction to Malaysian Contemporary Art” at Galeri Petronas Kuala Lumpur and presenting a paper at the seminar “Strategies” organised by IVAA (Indonesian Visual Arts Archive) in January 2008.

She was formerly an art columnist for the Malaysian Business Times and The New Sunday Times (2000-2003). As an art writer, she has also contributed to international exhibition publications such as ARS01 (Helsinki 2001), Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2005), and Wong Hoy Cheong (UK touring exhibition by Organisation for Visual Arts, 2002-2003); and arts and cultural magazines such as Art India, PhotoArtAsia, Off the Edge, and Kakiseni.com. She has edited a number of publications on local and regional art, including most recently, Between Generations: 50 Years Across Modern Art in Malaysia (with Hasnul J Saidon, University of Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia & Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur 2008). and Wong Hoy Cheong: Slight Shifts (with June Yap, NUS Museum, Singapore 2008).

RACHEL NG Director

Rachel Ng (b. Kuala Lumpur, 1975) graduated with First Class honours in Arts Management and a Minor in Information Technology from University Sarawak Malaysia in 1999. Upon graduation, she was recruited by Lim Kok Wing Institute of Creative Technology (LICT) to conceptualise and implement the Ideas Bank. By end 1999, upon completion of project, she joined Valentine Willie Fine Art as Manager, leaving to co-found RogueArt in 2008.

Over the years, she has also worked with many art institutions in the Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific region –namely Singapore Art Museum, Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery4A in Australia, overseeing transportation and shipping logistics of artworks on major traveling exhibitions.

She has also worked with corporate clients, advising corporations on acquisitions, cataloguing, documentation and presentation of their respective art collections. Some of the corporations she has worked with include CIMB’s art collection and ABN Amro Bank’s art collection in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and the other branches in Malaysia. In 2005, she was integral in the setting up of Tenaga Nasional’s private art gallery in Petaling Jaya and in managing their art collection.

Rachel has been featured in many articles published by The Star, Nanyang Siang Pao, Nu You magazine, and an education magazine published by GTI Specialist, focusing on the importance of administrators in the arts and the need for art managers to sustain an arts infrastructure.
Rachel has been invited to speak at various local colleges –Universiti Sains Malaysia, In-Tech College of Art, Center for Advanced Design(CENFAD)– on current art developments, intellectual property and copyright for artists, financial management, agreement and contracts, and know-how for artists.

ADELINE OOI Director

Adeline Ooi (b. Ipoh, 1976) is a curator and arts writer from Malaysia. She is trained at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design, London, majoring in Fine Art. She returned to Kuala Lumpur to join Valentine Willie Fine Art as Curator from 2000-2002. In 2002, Adeline received The Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectual (Junior) Fellowships Grant 2002/2003. Her research, Declarations of Independence, is a survey of independent artists’ initiatives in Indonesia and The Philippines.

Since 2003 Adeline has worked on a number of regional projects with institutions and galleries in Southeast Asia either as curator, writer, project manager and/or consultant, focusing mainly on Indonesian and Filipino contemporary art. Among the artists she has worked closely with include Agus Suwage (Indonesia), Eko Nugroho (Indonesia), Geraldine Javier (Philippines), Jalaini Abu Hassan (Malaysia), Jendela Group (Indonesia)–Handiwirman Saputra, Jumaldi Alfi, Rudi Mantofani, Yunizar and Yusra Martunus, Lena Cobangbang (Philippines) and Mella Jaarsma (Indonesia/Netherlands).

In 2004 she co-produced “Malaysia Art Now” with filmmaker Bernard Chauly, a survey documentary about the condition and issues surrounding contemporary Malaysian art. Between 2005- 2006 she collaborated with Filipino photographer Steve Tirona on a photography project “willwork4food” to document Manila’s exciting alternative art scene. The project was funded by The Nippon Foundation API Follow-Up Grant and culminated in an exhibition sharing the same title in April 2008 at Silverlens Gallery in Manila. From 2007 to 2008 she rejoined Valentine Willie Fine Art as full-time Curator.

She has written essays, reviews and criticisms for private publications and magazines such as Off the Edge, a lifestyle/culture magazine published by The Edge, a financial newspaper in Malaysia, as well as international publications such as Asian Art News, IdN, Art Asia-Pacific and Theme: Asian Culture Quarterly.

A co-founder of RogueArt, she is currently on the Board of Director’s at Silverlens Foundation in Manila (Philippines) and is a regular advisor/collaborator with Indonesian Visual Arts Archive (IVAA) in Yogyakarta (Indonesia). In 2009, Adeline was invited to speak about current developments of contemporary art in Southeast Asia at Asia Art Forum in Hong Kong as well as at the 2nd Jogja Art Fair: Spacing Contemporary in Indonesia. She is also one of the consulting curators of Jakarta Biennale 2009 and a Special Correspondents of the Future Generation Art Prize.