BALANCING ART
By Dr. Sian E Jay, 2000
Singapore today boasts many artists who pursue their passion for art without a burning desire for fame. Chew Kim Liong, 42, is one of these artists. Although Chew has been a practicing artist for more than two decades and his work has appeared in a number of group exhibitions in Asia and Europe, he held his first solo show only in March this year - at Singapore’s Cape of Good Hope Gallery. An early background in science, mathematics, and the arts has helped Chew to develop his ideas of painting and its role in the world at large in a number of significant ways, not the least of which is his blending of these disparate influences.
Chew, who “grew up in a little village in Malaysia, in Johor Baru, surrounded by nature,” has always loved drawing. From his earliest contact with the natural forms around him such as animals and plants, Chew has retained the influences and freshness of the natural world and the wonder that nature inspires. His earliest school experiences with the Chinese brush in learning calligraphy have also remained with him as is evident in his early experiments with traditional Chinese ink and color on paper in the 1980s, and his more recent abstractions which combine Chinese and Western painting techniques.
While Chew was studying mathematics at Singapore’s National University and a teaching program at the National Institute of Education, his passion for art remained strong. His passion was so strong that he began to study Chinese brush painting under two third-generation Shanghai masters who had studied with Chen Wen Hsi and Fan Chang Tian: Foo Chee San and later Nai Swee Leng who taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. But under Foo’s and Nai’s instruction and guidance Chew “not only mastered the techniques demanded by Chinese painting, but was encouraged to delve into the underlying Chinese philosophy.”
The Shanghai technique uses a forceful, simple brushstroke to capture the essence of the subject, “usually starting with bamboo and flowers, and then moving on to trees and landscapes.” Chew went along with his training and his work of the 1980s prompted Thomas Yeo – one of Singapore’s second-generation artists – to write that although Chew “paints in various themes from landscape to flowers an chickens…[he] appears to be more fluent with landscapes.”
“Actually” says Chew “although I was working in the Shanghai style, I was painting local subjects, so that instead of the bamboo you had palms” Chinese High Independence (1988) is an example of the kind of subject matter that Chew was dealing with at the time. Tropical palms are juxtaposed against a colonial building, a conscious attempt on the Chew’s part to move away from the clichéd Chinese subjects. Chinese High Independence also illustrates the splash technique with which Chew was beginning to experiments. It was, he points out, a technique first used in the Tang dynasty by Wang Qia. “I wanted to evolve, I never intended to keep doing the same thing over and over again. Once I had mastered the technique, I wanted to break free, so I began experimenting with the splash technique.” Chew’s science background came in handy, and he began taking the idea of splashing a stage further. “ We used to throw alum into the well when I was a child. It would make the sediment sink to the bottom so that the water that was then drawn up was clear. I began to think about ways that I could use the properties of alum and incorporate it into my work.”
In this way the technique Chew refers to as “alumning” was developed. By grading down the large alum crystals into powder and mixing them with water, Chew then “painted” the solution onto the paper. The solution was “invisible” on the paper, but when Chew then splashed on the colored ink, the alum solution acted as a barrier, masking areas of paper and leaving them clear. Cute Duo (1989) is a typical example of his early experimental work. The alum solution has been painted on to create a reed like effect, so that when the green and blue inks were splashed on, it became the background color. The fish were then painted on using a brush, being executed in typical Shanghai style.
Chew continued to develop his technique. He began taking flakes of pigment obtained from mineral and vegetable sources, and poster colors, adding them to the alum solution. In Mystery (1980), the effects of this pigmenting and splash technique can be seen. When the solution was splashed on the paper, the weights of the various pigments came into play, the heavier ones being carried further. There is also a measure of uncertainty, as one can never be completely sure how the pigments will react, or how the alum will affect the final outcome. In this image, Chew again reverts to his childhood memories by adding a delightfully energetic frog, leaping out of the splashed waterweed.
Until 1980, apart from pursuing his painting, Chew was also teaching mathematics. But even during this period, he was working on other aspects of his artistic development that would later pay dividends and there would be fresh influences that would inspire him. “Back in 1984,” Chew says, “I went to see an exhibition of Zhang Daqian’s paintings at the National Museum.” Indeed, although he had studied diligently under his tutors, Chew admits that it was this exhibition of Zhang’s work that prompted him to take up Chinese painting seriously. The exhibition also promoted Chew to begin an in depth study of Zhang’s works, as well as that of other Chinese masters. “I had to do all my study from books and magazines, which wasn’t entirely satisfactory,” he says. “But during the course of my reading on Zhang, I discovered that he had met Picasso in 1956. This meeting aroused my imagination. I was fascinated by the possibilities of such an encounter.”
Although it was some years before Chew was able to follow through with those possibilities, he did begin “some parallel investigations into Picasso’s works and other Western paintings. Like Picasso, Zhang had learned to paint in his childhood. They also achieved fame, particularly during their voluntary `exiles’ from their native countries. But the more I looked at their work, the more I felt that their paintings are not just passion-inspired creations, but also amazing artistic inventions that differ greatly from the work of their contemporaries.” So the more Chew learned, not only about these two great artists, but also about the work of other Asian and Western artists, the more he began asking himself whether the meeting of the two men affected their later works, or did it mean anything in the history of modern Chinese and Western painting?
In 1990, Chew moved to the National Institute of Education as a teaching assistant in the art department. In spite of his lack of formal art training, he was able to persuade the Institute that he had something positive to contribute. The Institute also supported Chew’s desire to pursue formal art studies and in 1993 sponsored him for his Ph.D at the University of London’s Goldsmiths College, from which he graduated in 1997, the first Ph.D in Fine Arts (by research) from Goldsmiths. This experience altered Chew’s view of the art world profoundly.
“Europe was a real eye-opener for me fro the artistic point of view. I was able to see all the Western paintings in the National Gallery, the Tate, the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay,” says Chew. “They were so different from the pictures in the books that I’d seen. The scale and colors had a much greater impact on me.” At the same time, Chew was also able to travel in Taiwan and Hong Kong to see original examples of great Chinese paintings.
For his research, Chew had chosen to focus on comparative studies between Chinese and Western art, focusing on the paintings of Zhang and Picasso. Asked what he felt he had achieved by pursuing this, Chew makes three points. “Firstly, I was one of the people to pioneer the comparative study of Eastern and Western painting. Secondly, I was able to take a closer look at the Western writing on Chinese arts and help clear up some of the errors. But most important, I was able to apply the Chinese aesthetic, when looking at Western painting. I discovered certain similarities in the way that Zhang and Picasso painted. They immersed themselves in the landscape in Zhang’s case and in personal relationships in Picasso’s before returning to the studio to reinterpret their experiences with their subjects.”
After his return to Singapore, Chew continued to paint and experiment, and the work produced after his return is some of the most interesting in his artistic career “ I was particularly struck by the away that color was used in Western painting, much bolder, brighter, and I wanted to try and use that idea.” His paintings, still using the pigmenting and alumning technique, began to use the whole area of the paper, and the color was applied with great deal more forcefulness. Chew also tried using European themes in his work, yet the retained a Chinese sensibility through the use of the splash technique, and of Chinese ink. Danaë 1, Danaë 2, Danaë 3 (1998), a painting now in the National Institute of Education collection, is a good example of the artist’s attempt to cross from one culture to another.
Using the Greek myth of Perseus’ mother, Danaë, who as shut up in a bronze tower, Chew depicts the visitation of the god Zeus. However, rather than simply portraying the event, Chew uses a split image technique to portray the two perspectives of the myth. He paints two images; one form the perspective of Danaë-the innocent and naïve-and one form the perspective of Zeus-the conscious-who seduces the maiden. The seduction is represented by a shower of gold, lines of pure energy shooting through the imagery. These appear again in later paintings. Chew then cut the two paintings in strips and re-arranged them to create a third perception. The painting is also one of the few where Chew depicts the human figure, here abstracted. The style appears to have been influenced by Picasso.
Chew continued to use the cutting up and replacing of the pictorial elements in a collaging form. The themes represented express a conscious attempt to reconcile the Eastern and Western traditions. In Journey of Life (1999), he uses the iconography of the lotus, with its many meanings in different cultures. Recombining the elements from several representations. The image becomes a metaphor for rebirth and life’s journey. Again the lines of energy, spermatozoa-like, shoot through the broken imagery linking the different parts and implying that despite their disparate origins the ideas are related, born from the same source.
Chew’s most recent work represents the culmination of his work to date. Between Natural Figuration and Spiritual Abstraction shows work that abstracts certain Western visual ideas, but using adapted traditional Chinese techniques, combined with his pigmenting and alumning. The pigments seem to float and glide across the surface of many of the images, such as Form-Spirit (2000).
Eastern philosophical ideas relating to balance and harmony, yin and yan, and the natural cycles of life are strongly apparent in many of the images such as The Four Seasons (2000) and Heart and Hand in Accord (2000). In both these examples, Chew has again used collaging to great effect: in the later example using it to reinforce Eastern philosophical ideas relating to the trigrams and structure of the universe.
Other images, such as Spiritual Form (2000) and Enlightenment (2000), are presented as pure expressions of spirituality. In others, Chew adds carefully placed figurative elements that become points of interest. They are drawn from ancient Shang imagery, pure expressions of aspects of the world, abstracted metal landscapes. In Calm Entrancement (2000), the pigments have been used to create an effect like sunlight on water, with prehistoric fish applied afterwards, moving through the depths, while an equally ancient boat floats on the surface, a layered balance of visual relationships. In Flawless Manifestation (2000) the abstracted landscape of glowing earth and dark tones is traversed by an ancient shamanic creature, part animal, part human.
A leaning towards Chew’s own Asian background comes through strongly in his work. This was more palpably portrayed in Flight Without Wings (2000). Using the imagery of a Tang horse to express not only the power and grace of the animal, but the domestication of the creature in ancient China. Chew recombines the imagery, juxtaposing the character ma (horse) with the image of the horse itself.
A large part of the visual appeal of Chew’s work lies in the way he applies color so that it appears to float. There is a suggestion of movement in many of his later works, which have developed well beyond his early experimental splashing and alumning attempts. The way of the colors lie on the paper may seem like accidental placements, but there is nothing accidental about his work. The colors are carefully balanced; they harmonize, sweeping across the paper. The artist’s long quest to imbue the Chinese visual aesthetic with the Western ideal has resulted in a series of images of great beauty, infused with order and energy.
