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Lot Essay
A first-generation Singaporean artist, Cheong Soo Pieng is known for driving the ‘Nanyang’ style of Singapore art, an art form concerning the integration of traditional Chinese and Western artistic paradigms within a vivid Southeast Asian context. Though widely acclaimed for his skilful works in oil, his ink paintings are an equally important aspect of his oeuvre. Not to be mistaken for preparatory sketches or practice work, Cheong’s continued to hone his techniques in traditional Chinese ink painting throughout his artistic career, even while being revered for his ingenious handling of the Western oil medium.
Inspired and intrigued by his new home, Singapore, Cheong masterfully captures local subjects and scenes in the ink medium he was most familiar with, depicting, among others, local fruits and food in his still life works, as well as figure compositions portraying varieties of work and leisure. In Fishermen and Still Life, he displays his stylistic adeptness and versatility in adopting a more cubist and abstract approach to the compositions. Here, the rigours of Chinese ink highlights precise details in the paintings, executed through the elongated forms of the men in the foreground of Fishermen; the sharp angles accomplished in thin and precise lines sketching out the pointed roofs of houses, bridges and simplified figures in a traditional kelong scene by a water’s edge; as well as the angular, geometric forms of rhizomes and assorted fruit illustrated through ink strokes of greater painterly control in Still Life.
The freedom and fluidity of the ink wash also allowed for a softer and more expressive rendering, creating intricate layers, densities and textures within the works. Cheong paints simply and directly, accentuating focal points in the paintings with bursts of colour; in the clothes of the fishermen, the curved contour of their fishing sampan and the roofs of their humble dwellings — all aspects of their livelihood — as well as the warm tropical blush in the bowl of fruit in his Still Life composition. With Fishermen and Still Life, every stroke and line bespeaks purpose, strength and fluidity, attesting to not only his talent and creative vision in experimenting with line, shape, form and colour, but also his skilful discipline as an artist.
Inspired and intrigued by his new home, Singapore, Cheong masterfully captures local subjects and scenes in the ink medium he was most familiar with, depicting, among others, local fruits and food in his still life works, as well as figure compositions portraying varieties of work and leisure. In Fishermen and Still Life, he displays his stylistic adeptness and versatility in adopting a more cubist and abstract approach to the compositions. Here, the rigours of Chinese ink highlights precise details in the paintings, executed through the elongated forms of the men in the foreground of Fishermen; the sharp angles accomplished in thin and precise lines sketching out the pointed roofs of houses, bridges and simplified figures in a traditional kelong scene by a water’s edge; as well as the angular, geometric forms of rhizomes and assorted fruit illustrated through ink strokes of greater painterly control in Still Life.
The freedom and fluidity of the ink wash also allowed for a softer and more expressive rendering, creating intricate layers, densities and textures within the works. Cheong paints simply and directly, accentuating focal points in the paintings with bursts of colour; in the clothes of the fishermen, the curved contour of their fishing sampan and the roofs of their humble dwellings — all aspects of their livelihood — as well as the warm tropical blush in the bowl of fruit in his Still Life composition. With Fishermen and Still Life, every stroke and line bespeaks purpose, strength and fluidity, attesting to not only his talent and creative vision in experimenting with line, shape, form and colour, but also his skilful discipline as an artist.