Lot 014
LUI CHENG THAK
b. Negri Sembilan, 1967
ROADSIDE BARBER, 2008
Signed and dated 'Cheng Thak Lui 08' (lower right)
Oil on canvas
49cm x 38.5cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur.
ESTIMATE RM 3,000 - 5,000
PRICE REALISED RM 4,226
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It's a dying breed, the roadside barber, or they might have disappeared completely. Also because the municipal and town authorities are much more stringent now. The lang-ting-tang man, the roti (bread) man cheap Benggali Bread dangling by the sides of the tricycle, the roadside cobbler, the sweet treacle hawker, the barefoot kacang-putih seller, the kueh-mueh man with baskets of food on two sides of the pole slung over his shoulder…. The artist Lui Cheng Thak has recorded some of them, as part of his pet themes of cultural and architectural heritage. This itinerant barber, however, looks more settled in his spot as he has a barber chair handy, not just a chair or a stool. This is the fifth time he is featured in the Henry Butcher art auction since his debut in 2002.
Lui has not looked back in expanding and improving the quality of his oil-canvas repertoire since he graduated with a Diploma in Art&Design from the Kuala Lumpur College of Art (1987-89), His solos include As I Was Passing (Hotel Istana, KL, organised by Pelita Hati), Our Heritage (Rusli Hashim Fine Art, KL, 2001), As I Was Passing II (GaleriCitra, 2006), Circles: Nostalgia and Collective Memory, White Box, MAPS Publika, 2014) and seven solos at PinkGuy Gallery, KL, from 2001 with Heart and ending the collaboration with Endless (2017), where the prospective collector got to title he/she bought. Redeem in 2014 was PinkGuy’s most memorable with Lui where 12 of the paintings were sold within 18 minutes of the opening! |