the 2016 nanyang show the 2016 nanyang show 9 - 12 JUNE 2016, 11AM - 8PM VISUAL ARTS CENTRE, SINGAPORE 10 Penang Road, #01-02 Dhoby Ghaut Green, S238469 CONTACT +6016 298 0852 | [email protected] | www.christay.com foreword The Nanyang Show held at the Visual Arts Centre, Singapore features 47 artworks by 19 artists from Malaysia and Singapore. Organised and presented by Chris Tay, this exhibition/sale event provides an opportunity for art collectors to view and acquire some of the well sought after works by important artists practising in the Nanyang Style. Art by Malaysian and Singapore artists in recent years have surged in popularity and are widely collected. Works of the early period have become particularly rare. Offered at this exhibition/sale are over 16 early works by the Nanyang pioneers. I congratulate Chris for presenting The Nanyang Show to all art lovers. Koh Seow Chuan Architect and Art Collector 4 interpreting nanyang art the 10 essentials sarah abu bakar The theme Nanyang is distinctive of Southeast Asian history Prominent historian and scholar Wang Gungwu explains its particularly in the study of cultural identity and Chinese diaspora geographic meaning: “the word ‘Nanyang’, the ‘Southern Ocean’, that is significant in the development of art in alternative is used as an equivalent of the more recent coinage, ‘South-east Asia’. modernism.1 This essay is an accompaniment to The Nanyang But there is an important difference. There is implied in the word Show from 9 to 12 June 2016 at the Visual Arts Centre in ‘Nanyang’ territories which have been reached by sea, by the South Singapore, showcasing 47 artworks by selected artists who have China Sea, and consequently, the areas which specially concern the created paintings centered on the Nanyang theme, either the Nanyang Chinese have been the key coastal strips of mainland South- artists had lived during the time when the call for “local color” east Asia.”4 was at its peak or as a continuity of an artistic approach still apparent today.2 In this exhibition, viewers are able to examine the amalgamation of Eastern and Western painting techniques in illustrations that Featuring works by Chen Wen Hsi, Chia Hui Chian, Chia Yu depict a particular time and space. For instance, Tan Choon Chian, Chong Hip Seng, Fung Yow Chork, Heng Eow Lin, Ho Ghee’s use of Chinese ink with calligraphy brush and watercolour Khay Beng, Khaw Sia, Khoo Sui Hoe, Kuo Ju Ping, Le Chek on rice paper to depict Singapore River landscape dated 1977 Wen, Lee Cheng Yong, Lee Joo For, Ong Kim Seng, Seah Kim and Chia Hui Chian’s rendition of the Morning Market, which Joo, Tan Choon Ghee, Tew Nai Tong, Tsai Horng Chung and illustrates a group of multiethnic figures adorning vibrant attires Yong Mun Sen dated since the 1930s, the artworks not only offer in a market setting executed in Post-Impressionism manner. Both visual aesthetics, but also historical narratives in Malaya, Malaysia pictures are geographically domestic in context achieved in a and Singapore. combination of methods. Much has been written about the Nanyang Style and its artists. Another observable example is Yong Mun Sen’s depiction of local In this text, ten essential points about Nanyang Art covering its farmers planting paddy in the field executed in oil on canvas origins, advocates, purposes, period, context, viewpoints, stylistic laid on board. Created in 1946, Paddy Planting illustrates four method, geographic importance, influences, and its present agriculturalists – three figures are bending over in chorus to plant relevance are gathered. With reference to the artworks on offer, the rice seedlings into a muddy bed of soil, while the other figure viewers are able to observe various interpretations of a newfound is watching over them holding a bunch of rice plants in her hand land at its essence. – painted in a Western manner. Though this exhibition may only feature a fraction of a more extensive premise – focusing mainly on artists from Malaysia 2. The Making of Nanyang Style - it must be noted that some of the more important Nanyang artists comprising of names like Liu Kang, Lim Hak Tai, Lim Yew There are various social and political occurrences that have Kuan, Georgette Chen, Chua Mia Tee, Cheong Soo Pieng, Tan instigated the need for a cultural revolution in China – the Tee Chie, See Cheen Tee, Yeh Chi Wei, Lim Mu Hue, Lai Foong opening up of treaty ports in China in the nineteenth century, the Moi, Chuah Thean Teng, Chong Pai Mu, Chen Chong Swee, Lim acceptance of Western artistic ideas and materials, the inculcation Tze Peng, to name a few, produce remarkable works that also of Western and Chinese ideals in Chinese education by Cai express the spirit of the Southern Seas. Yuanpei (1868 – 1940), which leads to the New Culture and May Fourth movements, the increasing number of Overseas Chinese in Malaya and Singapore, imperialism and communism, Sino- 1. Defining Nanyang Japanese wars – any of which may have influenced the change either directly or indirectly as recounted by historians.5 Nanyang or ‘Southern Seas’ is a term originally coined in the late 1920s by literary intelligentsia to indicate contemporary Chinese Publications also played a critical role in promoting the Cultural narratives written based on local subjects.3 Revolution in Malaya (including Singapore). A number of 7 essays discussing the issue of Nanyang literature were produced Nanyang (Nanyang Artists Retrospective Exhibition) catalogue.9 by Singapore’s writers between 1927 and 1933 with titles like “Singapore Artists, Awake,” “Literary Culture and the Overseas Evident in the work of Tsai Horng Chung titled Young Tribal Lady Chinese,” and “Literature and Local Color” were published in Playing Gong, the artist has incorporated his surroundings into his Huang Dao, Ye Lin, Wenyi Zhoukan, and Fan Xing.6 paintings. Born in 1916 in China, Tsai graduated from Shanghai Art Academy and was one of the pioneer Nanyang artists who Zeng Shengti (1901 – 1982), editor of Wenyi Zhoukan wrote in migrated to Sarawak to teach art in 1943. Trained in traditional an essay for the 1929 inaugural edition: “Singapore artists, awake! Chinese painting, he skillfully illustrates a native playing a The old world has melted under the fierce heat of the sun. Let us hang traditional music instrument in a stylised manner using ink and our flag upon the towering coconut tree. The immense and cloudless colour on rice paper mounted on scroll. sky affirms our openness. The elephant symbolizes our resoluteness. The long green leaves declare our freshness. The sea rings out our triumph Kevin Chua, in his essay titled Painting The Nanyang’s Public: Notes cry. Our fresh environment provides us with unlimited material. Toward A Reassessment elucidates another accurate description of Come, let us blow by blow and layer by layer construct our artistic, the Nanyang Style from the 1950s: iron tower.”7 “What marks so many Nanyang paintings of the early 1950s is the Around the same time in Penang, versatile artist Lee Cheng Yong sense that subjects were available, and close at hand: a prahu or displayed a strong expression of regionalism through his work. fishing boat, cows grazing, even something as prosaic as a rubbish Created circa 1930s, Fertile Soil features a pastoral landscape by dump. Thrown back into the world, painting was confronted with the the coast, consisting of a few huts that could perhaps suggest an everyday, the ordinary. The story of Malayan painting of the 1950s agricultural area amidst a seascape background. His warm and was the struggle to represent and thus speak to the public, to find that earthy colour palette of Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna with hints imaginary exterior point that could capture both inside and outside.”10 of blue and green illustrates “the fierce heat of the sun”. The descriptive subject matter is evident in the works of Kuo Ju The New Culture Movement in Singapore was aimed to promote Ping (Boat Construction, Reaching Home, Rice Mill, The Hut by nation building and enlightenment in cultural change. With the Back Alley, Unloading Cargo), Fung Yow Chork (By the Jetty vernacularisation as the intellectual’s first quest by using Mandarin at Pulau Ketam), Ho Khay Beng (Stilt Houses) and Yong Mun Sen as the “national language” and to approach their writings in “local (A Hut Near Water, Singapore Riverside Scene, Still Life with Pots). color” by making Southeast Asia as their canvas and calling this Based on these images, the artists have captured the realities of a new culture “Nanyang” or “huaqiao” or Overseas Chinese culture.8 specific place at a particular time. Chen Wen Hsi’s Gibbons not only retains elements of Chinese culture, firstly in its medium and format, secondly in its subject 4. Western Influence Eastern Context matter – Chen was first inspired by a painting by the 13th century Southern Song Dynasty Chinese artist Mu Xi titled White Robed From a formalistic perspective, paintings created by the Nanyang Guanyin, Crane and Gibbon while he was still in China – but it artists that is being referred to as Nanyang Style encompasses “a also demonstrates his commitment in artistic endeavours when he combination of techniques and approaches from the School of purchased a white-faced gibbon for $300 at a pet shop shortly Paris, Chinese traditional ink painting from the literati tradition, after arriving in Singapore in the late 1940s and nurturing it in as well as the Shanghai School.”11 his garden to study the postures and characteristics of the primate. The three distinctive categories of artistic solutions are the fusion of Eastern and Western techniques, the adaptation of new subject 3. Subject Matter and Technique matter into traditional Chinese painting, and the depiction of local context through a distinctive Western art movement.