Dessa Nur Khair
About
Dessa is a Singapore-born mixed-media artist exploring the unseen layers of human experience through charcoal drawing, painting and photography. For her, art is not just a practice—it is a voice.
Dessa's work is rooted in lived experience. She finds solace in creating, through which she makes sense of what feels unclear and processes what is hard to say out loud. Her work centres on family, identity and quiet emotional moments, and she is often placed as subject to give form to feelings that are both deeply personal and universal. If even one person sees her work and feels a little less alone, that is enough.
Dessa's work was recognised at the 2018 Singapore Youth Festival and was featured at the National Gallery Singapore. She continues to develop her practice through ongoing exploration and experimentation, and intends to continue her undergraduate education with a bachelor's degree in fine arts.
In the right eyes, you will be art.
This body of work consists of a video and floor installation that places the body at the centre of its own unravelling.
In the video, hurtful words are projected directly onto the artist's skin, labels she was made to carry, before they roll off and disappear. because
The floor installation extends this idea that the gap between feeling and being understood is never fully closed. Motion-blurred photographs of the artist are vandalised with scratches, and words are sewn onto the images, worn like a tattoo on skin.
These words were drawn from real messages, which were deconstructed to surface specific words designed to hurt. They were put on display not out of bitterness, but as an act of reclamation.
This project does not offer a fix. It simply says: the unravelling is valid, the mess is not something to hide. If you have ever been made to feel like the problem for simply having feelings, this is for you too.
Nurin Zahirah Binte Zakaria
Cao Pengfei (Josephine)
Linh Nguyen
Yura Sakiyama
Rozalita Sahetapy
Ei Myat Phyu Sin
