Lot 71
CHANG FEE MING
b. Terengganu, 1959
STUDY FOR TWILIGHT
AT THE RIVER OF LOST FOOTSTEPS
(YANGON, MYANMAR), 1994
Inscribed ‘Yangon 明 94’ lower left and right
Watercolour and ink on paper
10cm x 14.5cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur
EXHIBITED
Chang Fee Ming: Sketching Through Southeast Asia,
Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, 2010,
illustrated on catalogue page 36.
ESTIMATE RM 4,000 - 5,000
PRICE REALISED RM 5,500 |
The multi-toned summary sketches of robed monks with begging bowl in hand are revealing of the transiency of life and in a way, the old world and old ways of life in Myanmar. The sketch shows an exploration of shadow and contrast in figurative depictions. This concern with the beliefs of monks is also mirrored in the book River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), an insight into Burmese history through the personal journey of Dr. Thant Myint-U, the grandson of the former UN Secretary-General U Thant and of royal lineage too. The landlocked Burma is seen as one of the last bastions of the romantic old world of Rudyard Kipling, with its odd mixture of colonialism and monarchy. This is part of the works culminating in Fee Ming’s magnum opus The Road to Mandalay in 1995.
Ranked among the finest of watercolour artists in Asia, Fee Ming has gone from strength to strength since his early successes, winning the Asean Gold Prize in the Sime Darby Art Asia Competition in 1985, the PNB Malaysian Art Competition the same year, and the Malaysian Watercolour Society (MWS) Award in 1984 and 1985. He also won the Minor Awards in the Young Contemporary Artists Competition in 1986 and 1987. In 1997, he won two awards of Distinction in the Rockport Publishers USA and in 1999, the Dom Perignon Portrait of A Perfectionist Award, Malaysia. He was a co-winner of the Winsor & Newton World Millennium Painting Competition in 1999 and was selected for the Singapore Tyler Print Institute project in 2009, which resulted in his solo exhibition Imprinted Thoughts. Exhibited and collected widely around the world, Fee Ming is based in Kuala Terengganu and Bali.
REFERENCE
The World of Chang Fee Ming, essay by Ooi Kok Chuen, edited by Garrett Kam, 1995.
The Visible Trail of Chang Fee Ming, Christine Rohani Longuet, 2000.
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