About
Trained in technical and scientific illustration, Jerry's work as a freelance illustrator saw him working with scientific journals with academic publications and technical documentation with commercial clients.
However his main interest remains in storytelling and comics. Jerry had been developing his ideas into short form comics and intellectual properties, with Rex Regrets being one of the more successful titles.
Recognising early on that the community of illustrators in Singapore is vital to the creative scene, Jerry is an active volunteer with Organisation of Illustrators Council Singapore and was a key founding member of Illustration Arts Festival. Jerry is also on the team running Singapore's annual 24 Hour Comics Day event.
Jerry became an arts educator by accident. Teaching vital foundational art skills, he's currently an adjunct lecturer with LASALLE's Diploma in Fine Arts programme.
Stories Untold
Singapore’s official national narratives first introduced via the civics and moral education syllabus in 1991 centre around the five Shared Values. Official narratives of Singapore and Singaporeans from the formal public sphere often fall into common tropes aligned with the shared values. However there is space in the informal public sphere for nuanced stories about being a Singaporean.
Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) as the guiding principle for this study, the generation of themes, workshop planning and facilitation style of this study guides participants through their learning journey to become their own comic strip artist. With this knowledge and skill, participants can tell their autobiographical stories through comics and add to the unofficial Singapore narrative.
The workshop component of this study combines pedagogical concepts from John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and Narratology, starting with facilitator guided programming, then gradually handing control of the workshop over to the participants.
The stories typically glossed over in mainstream media by key words such as resilience, adaptability or fearlessness, were collected from these workshops. They show real struggles, anxieties, similarities and differences from across two generations of participants. These stories and the participants’ journey from non-artists to autobiographical cartoonists
Professional practice
Choi Jeong Won
Chng Xin Xuan
Mu Yanyu
Simon Pike
Marcus “Marzipan” Tan
Xu Yanzhe
