The screen-prints produced by Kok Yew Puah are highly distinctive, characterised by a flat pictorial surface, simplified geometrical elements and unique forms made with clearly defined edges of colour. Experimenting with opposing colours, the artist reconfigured lines and shapes in this visually dynamic composition. Puah Kok Yew, better known as Kok Yew Puah after the Westerners habit of putting one's surname last, started his art career with a slew of hard-edged Pop graphic works in abstract using silkscreen. In his art studies at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia, from 1966 to 1972, he got a diploma for Painting and a Masters-diploma for Printmaking. After a short spell, Puah disappeared completely from the art scene end-1970s to concentrate on setting up the family food business in Klang, especially in ketchup. But business commitments were not the only reason for his withdrawal from art-making. Fellow Australian art-trained buddy Joseph Tan (1941-2001) had confided that it was also a chronic lack of printmaking facilities then, although he was teaching part-time at the Mara Institute of Technology, where Joseph was a full-time staff member. He had a solo to show, at the Samat Art Gallery, in 1973. After a decade and a half, with his business virtually on auto, Puah decided to make a comeback. It was a completely different "artist" for Puah, inspired by David Hockney, had opted for representational art with concerns about the immediate changing environment and identity. Ditto, his comeback solo titled Kok Yew Puah: 1985-1993, which was followed by Klang And Beyond in 1997. In 1994, he divested of his business in acrimonious circumstances, but the good news was that he was adjudged 2nd in the Philip Morris Asean Art Awards – Malaysia. He again was one of the five Malaysian winners the next year.