Contemporary Art Gallery Near Me in Gillman Barracks: Richard Koh Fine Art

Richard Koh Fine Art is a gallery for Southeast Asian contemporary art at Blk 47 Malan Road #01-26, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 109444, open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 am to 7 pm and closed on Sundays, Mondays and public holidays. Until 7 November 2026 it shows the Thai painter Natee Utarit's A Midsummer Night's Dream / The Artificial Lunatic's Diary, a set of strange, beautifully painted racehorse portraits that grew out of the artist's dream journal. If you are looking up contemporary art gallery near me near Labrador Park, this is one of the strongest single painting shows in the precinct this autumn.

Richard Koh, a Malaysian designer, opened his gallery in August 2005 in Bangsar, the Kuala Lumpur neighbourhood, at an address on Jalan Limau Purut, according to the gallery's archived contact page. Its stated mission is the promotion of Southeast Asian contemporary art. Singapore came later: in 2014 the gallery listed a space at Artspace@Helutrans in Tanjong Pagar Distripark, in 2016 an office at Ubi Techpark, and by June 2020 its current unit at Gillman Barracks.

Today it also runs a gallery in Bangkok, on the ninth floor of the Peterson Building on Sukhumvit Road, and in June 2026 it opened a new Kuala Lumpur space at APW Bangsar with a Justin Lim show, returning to the neighbourhood where it started. That reach is visible on the walls in Singapore, where the programme draws on artists from across the region rather than one national scene. Recent Singapore shows this year included Alya Hatta's Slow Paradise in the summer and Greg Burak's Antecedents in September.

Natee Utarit, born in Bangkok in 1970, is described by the gallery as a leading Southeast Asian contemporary artist, and this show began in a notebook in which he records his dreams. The gallery explains that the paintings are grouped by subject: gloves and metaphor, horses and jockeys, dreams of his mother, and sexuality. Formally, they borrow from English sporting portraiture, the tradition of the standing racehorse painted in profile against open country, and then let something go slightly wrong inside that calm format.

In The superior and Dilettante, a white glove takes the jockey's place. In The twin superior, an oil on canvas of 112 by 150 centimetres, a beach ball rolls into the field. The most pointed work is a diptych called Art is for everyone…Art is not for stoopid people, a sentence Utarit encountered in Singapore in early 2020 printed on a tote bag and pen given out at a private dinner. Another canvas borrows the opening line of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, recast so that an art collector wakes from troubled dreams transformed into a horrible vermin.

Start with the horse paintings, because the rest of the room reads as variations on them. Stand back first to take in the polished, old-master finish, then walk up to find the intruding objects, which are often painted so smoothly that you notice them late. Leave the diptych for last, since its joke depends on having already absorbed the elegance of everything else. A careful look takes about half an hour. The show had a first chapter in Bangkok from 26 September to 17 October 2026, so the Singapore presentation is the half still on view.

The gallery's list of current and upcoming exhibitions shows nothing in Singapore after Utarit closes on 7 November 2026, so the room may be quiet for a while after that. If you miss it, the gallery's artist Justin Lim has a survey called REVERIE: Paintings for the Observer & the Observed at The Private Museum in Singapore until 6 December 2026, listed by the gallery under its elsewhere section. For a Gillman visit in late November, go next door to Yeo Workshop instead, where Filippo Sciascia opens on 21 November.

The gallery shares Block 47 with Yeo Workshop at #01-25 and with The Southern Depot, whose units include Kyuukei Coffee at #01-22, while Little Island Brewing sits in Block 43 next door. A short walk up Lock Road brings you to Sundaram Tagore, OTA Fine Arts, ShangHART, Yavuz, Mizuma Gallery, The Columns Gallery and the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art. The Singapore Land Authority, which manages the precinct, says Gillman Barracks was built in 1936 and holds 17 colonial state properties across about 6.6 hectares, surrounded by Southern Ridges trails.

Saturday is the day to come if you work during the week, because the gallery closes on Sundays while some neighbours stay open. Mizuma Gallery on Lock Road, for example, lists Sunday hours of 11 am to 6 pm during the photography festival, but Richard Koh's door will be shut. Arrive by mid-afternoon on Saturday so you have time for this room plus two or three others before 7 pm. Take the Circle Line to Labrador Park and use Exit A, then follow the road uphill for about ten minutes; drivers enter from Malan Road. The walk between blocks is outdoors, so carry an umbrella in the wet months, when afternoon storms are common, and take a break at the coffee bar in the same block before heading back down.

Address: Richard Koh Fine Art, Blk 47 Malan Road #01-26, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 109444. Email: info@rkfineart.com. Website: rkfineart.com. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11 am to 7 pm. Closed Sunday, Monday and public holidays. Now showing: Natee Utarit, A Midsummer Night's Dream / The Artificial Lunatic's Diary, 3 October to 7 November 2026. Getting there: Labrador Park MRT, Exit A, about a 10-minute walk, or buses to the stop opposite Alexandra Point.

Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a lunch spot at Gillman Barracks or a route that links Richard Koh, Yeo Workshop and Mizuma in one visit.