I remember accompanying a friend to a Salvador Dali exhibition a few years ago. While it was filled with some of his most iconic and interesting work, I could never understand how art lovers were able to stand in front of art pieces for extended periods of time, going over every minute detail of the work.

Until Salvador Dali stepped into my life for the second time.

At the start of August, Capella Singapore welcomed many sculptures from one of the most influential Surrealist masters of all time, Salvador Dalí.  Together with the art consultants at Opera Gallery, we were able to bring this prestigious gathering to life. Nestled alongside the sea, Capella Singapore echoes the Catalan landscapes of Cadaques where Dalí spent his childhood vacations, making it the perfect location for a commemorative event.

The art exhibition which took place in the gift shop at Bob’s Bar featured 27 of Salvador Dali’s sculptures from 28 July to 5 August. The unique location which featured floor-to-ceiling glass windows allowed guests to view the art pieces in their full glory, untained from the artificial lighting sometimes found in galleries and museums.

The beauty of art broadens perspectives, stimulates imagination and adds color to life. The Surrealist Piano was one such sculpture which caught my attention.  During the exhibition, I took the time to admire its beauty and discover its hidden character. Instead of the ordinary wooden legs of a piano, he replaced them with dancing female legs, embellished with what appears to be a can-can skirt. To me, Dalí created an animated instrument which can not only play music, but appreciate it and dance to the very music it is playing.

The works on display were exemplary presentations of the form, beauty and even insanity of the artist. Conceived by Dalí on the basis of his most famous pictures, the bronze sculptures vigorously demonstrate the force of expression behind his iconographic surrealist imagery.

It was Salvador Dali that once famously declared, “The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.” This quote is not only apt for Capella Singapore’s celebration of art and culture, but has come to encapsulate everything Dalí has opened my mind to.  In thinking out of the box and pushing the boundaries of creative expression in my work, I too, want to pursue the outrageous.

After all, a life not lived outrageously, is a life not lived at all.  Learning this under the guise of art I am now eagerly anticipating the next art exhibit to come to Capella Singapore.