Lot 041
CHONG SIEW YING
b. Kuala Lumpur, 1969
ISLE OF GOLD, 2008
Signed and dated ‘Siew Ying 08’ (lower left)
Oil on linen
65.4cm x 200.3cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Singapore;
acquired through Valentine Willie Fine Art.
ESTIMATE RM 22,000 - 30,000
PRICE REALISED RM 44,000 |
*Image of artwork has been pixelated to respect local cultural sensitivities.
Often considered as one of the strongest female artists to present the human figure and human emotions, Chong Siew Ying presents the female body as landscape in this oil on linen. The pine tree on the left of the work references stylistic elements from traditional Chinese brush painting while gesturing the scale of classical nude figure whose gaze is averted but not shy. Looking beyond, the nude spreads horizontally across the composition as though her body is part of the landscape behind her. The monochrome earth tones which colour the landscape also hue her body.
This painting is not a sexualised portrayal of the female body but a celebration of a woman’s space and femininity linking her with Mother Earth. Like the invocations of Lin Yu-tang’s The Good Earth, this work by a daughter of a Sekinchan farmer also tells of a natural kinship with land.
Chong Siew Ying enrolled in the Ecole Des Beaux-Art in Versailles, France in 1991 and international printmaking centre Atelier 63. Her career has since spanned solo and group exhibitions in Malaysia and around Southeast Asia. She was a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2005. In 2002, Siew Ying won the special award at The Young Contemporaries, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, and in 2001 the Freeman Asian Artist Fellowship Award at The Vermont Studio Center in the United States. From 1999 to 2000, she was artist-in-residence at Rimbun Dahan, Kuang, Malaysia. Her works are held in the collection of National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, and major private collections in Malaysia, Singapore, France and the USA. She is currently based in Kuala Lumpur and Paris.
REFERENCE
Idyll, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, 2008.
Many Splendoured Things, Anurendra Jegadeva, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, 2006.
Chong Siew Ying, Gary Proctor, Rimbun Dahan, Selangor, 2000.
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