Exhibition Details:

Nest & Neighbours: Solitude and Coexistence in High-Density Cities

Solo Exhibition by Ceet Fouad

Curator: Rick Shi/Amanda Wei

Curatorial Team: Audrey Zhang, Yan Li, Kenneth Liu, Freya Zhang, Grace Shen

Presented by

Prestige Gallery x Wei Gallery

Supported by

Embassy of France in Singapore

Official Programme

French Excellence Singapore Festival

Exhibition Press Release | Download here

Opening Reception

Saturday, 04 April 2026

15:00 – 19:00

​Prestige Gallery (39 Keppel Rd #03-01, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065)

Mr. Francois Lusteau, Cultural Counsellor of the French Consulate in Singapore, will attend the exhibition opening as the guest of honor.

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At a time when cities across the globe continue to expand vertically, high density is no longer merely a spatial condition. It has become a force that profoundly shapes psychological structures and social relations. The exhibition “Nest and Neighbours“, presented by Ceet Fouad, unfolds within this context as a form of visual inquiry. As a key figure in contemporary French graffiti art, CEET presents his first solo exhibition in Singapore, transforming his long-term observations of Asian cities into a body of contemporary visual allegories with broader resonance.

Through his iconic “chicano chickens” figures, CEET constructs a visual system that is at once playful and complex. The seemingly repetitive forms generate a network of relations that oscillates between intimacy and detachment. These figures are at once “neighbours” and “strangers” — sharing space while maintaining subtle psychological distance. Beneath their humour and vibrant palette lies a sustained reflection on individual existence and collective structure.

Artists have been wandering between Asian cities for a long time, from the vertical compression of Hong Kong to the orderly residential aesthetics presented by Singapore’s HDB flats. These specific experiences have been translated into a highly symbolic visual language. In CEET’s work, architecture is no longer a backdrop but a structural metaphor. It organises collectivity while producing boundaries; it provides shelter while shaping the terms of connection.

This exhibition does not try to make direct criticism, but guides the audience into a more complex level of perception through a gentle but continuous visual tension. In the highly organised and superimposed urban structure, we gradually adapt to the approach of each other, but we may also lose the real connection invisibly.

When we are placed in the same structure, can we still truly reach one another?

Ceet Fouad

Ceet Fouad born in 1971 in Oran, Algeria. He spent his early childhood in Toulouse, France, where he began developing the imaginative visual language that would later define his practice. It was during this formative period that his now-iconic “chicken” motif first emerged—playful in appearance yet conceptually layered.

Ceet’s signature characters, often referred to as “Chicanos,” are small, vibrant, and expressive figures rendered in joyful, harmonious colours. Beneath their seemingly lighthearted surface lies a pointed reflection on contemporary society. Through these figures, Ceet explores themes of conformity, individuality, and the subtle pressures of modern life—suggesting a world in which people are increasingly shaped into “followers,” hesitant to stand apart or embrace their uniqueness.

At the same time, these characters function as personal avatars. Ceet uses them to convey his own experiences and observations, offering an ironic commentary on a social landscape where individuals often move with the tide, gradually losing distinctidentity. Since 2003, his practice has evolved into a visual language of communication—one that reflects his lived experience within densely populated urban environments, where he describes feeling “like one of the chickens in the crowd.”