Lot 131
HENG EOW LIN
b. Kedah, 1946
MOTHER'S LOVE (011), 2003
Signed and dated (lower right)
Oil on canvas
75cm x 75cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur.
ESTIMATE RM 5,500 - 8,500
PRICE REALISED RM 8,400 |
Heng Eow Lin, one of the early stalwarts of Nanyang Art, invariably goes back to his endearing ‘Mother and Child’ theme every now and then in his sculptures, big and small, and also in his paintings, which he varies in execution in Realism and also in abstract, or combining both. To him, there is no love more pure and overpowering than a mother’s love, and he often creates the babies and children, for his amusement and sense of fatherly love and concern that eludes him in real life. Strangely, despite his advocacy of the Mother-and-Child bond, apart from various other pet themes, he was not invited to feature in the National Art Gallery’s Ya Ibu (Kasihannya Ibu) exhibition from April to May 2011. His rendition of the mother and the baby, and of children in general, often naked to show the purity, freedom and uninhibited nature. In this work, the bond is shown in a semi-abstract way with the background a different artistic point and to enhance the emotional rapport. In 2015 (June 27-July 12), Lin, as the Kedah-born artist is popularly known, was given a major retrospective by Soka-Gakkai Malaysia. It was called A Journey of 47 Years. In all these years, he keeps on painting and sculpting and taking part in exhibitions, workshops and art camps all over the world, particularly in Thailand. Lin was a full-time artist all his life. When he graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Art in Singapore in 1970, he was given a solo in 1977 by the Singapore Art Museum. His first home solos were at the Malaysian Institute of Art, Kuala Lumpur, and Dewan Sri Pinang in Pinang in 1992. He had done a major sculpture commission for the Malacca Museum, and monumental sculpture work at Karpal Drive and for other institutions.
Reference:
A Journey of 47 Years (In conjunction with his major exhibition at Soka Gakkai, Kuala Lumpur, June 27-July 12, 2015) |