The elegant and lyrical painter Chong Siew Ying illustrates a pair of male and female figures, each enthralled in their emotions of awe and excitement in this alluring piece titled Idylle II. Featured in the artist’s first major exhibition in Malaysia, this piece demonstrates her ability to infuse Western and Eastern techniques on canvas.
 

Distinctly Chinese in each portrait’s features, Siew Ying is interested in exploring the notion of beauty and harmony in classical Chinese painting and portray it in a contemporary context. The deliberate use of flowers in Siew Ying’s paintings is symbolic of nature introduced as an element of freedom and fragility in its ambience. At ease with painting in large dimensions, Siew Ying’s monochromatic subject dominates the canvas set amidst pastoral and romantic setting embellished with beautiful blooms.
 

Chong Siew Ying’s bold figures have opened new vistas into the art, psychology and physiology of painting the body, what with her latest body of work where Chinese philosophy and ink and brush starkness are infused in a solo exhibition titled Crying with Trees (2014). Her figures were transformed after studying at the L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Versailles (1991-1994) and then the L’Atelier 63 (1994 - 1996). Her early tutelage was at the Petaling Jaya College of Art and Design (Graphic Design, Diploma, 1990). Upon her return from Paris, she was selected for Rimbun Dahan artists’ residency from 1999 to 2000, which was followed by another at the Vermont Studio Centre in the United States of America in 2001. In 2002, she clinched a Special Award in the Young Contemporary Artists competition and she was a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2005. Her solo exhibitions included Idylle: New Paintings by Chong Siew Ying (2008), Many Splendoured Things (2006), Going Away, Coming Home (2002) and Chong Siew Ying: Selected Works 1996-1997 in Kuala Lumpur, 1998. In Paris, she has held solo exhibitions at the Maison Tch’A, Atelier D.Maravel and Gallery Café Panique. Her works are collected by the National Visual Arts Gallery in Kuala Lumpur as well as respected private collections in Malaysia, Singapore, France and the USA. She now lives and works as a full-time artist in Malaysia. Her works was recently exhibited in two group exhibitions at Art Stage Singapore 2015 titled Being Human: Figuratism of 16 Malaysian Artists and Stepping Out.

 

REFERENCE

Chong Siew Ying , Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, 2008.