From the 1920s onwards, the Indonesian island of Bali has been a fertile and mythical source of artistic inspiration in Southeast Asia for generations of artists. One of the most recognised art movement in Southeast Asia, the Nanyang Style, a mix of styles and technique derived from Chinese pictorial traditions and the School of Paris which is firmly associated with the first-generation Chinese migrant artists based in Singapore, has irrevocable links with Bali.

In 1952, Cheong Soo Pieng and three other artists of Chinese origin based in Singapore - Liu Kang, Chen Chong Swee and Chen Wen Hsi went on a by-now historic field trip to Bali. In Bali, the were searching for a distinctly Southeast Asian visual expression. Kwok Kian Chow states - "[n]ot only did Bali offer them a rich visual source, the Balinese experience also revealed the ritualistic, experiential and decorative nature of Southeast Asian art -- a point which sets the Singapore story apart from the Gauguinian legend. During and after the trip, images of Bali provided both the inspiration and visual sources which enabled the artists to crystalise their exploration of an aesthetic style in Singapore art."

Cheong Soo Pieng's Balinese Girls with Offerings (Lot 2024) is an outstanding work in the Singapore modern artist's 1950s oeuvre that attests to the long-standing inspiration the island of Bali had on him ever since the trip. The sale of this work also commemorates the 60th anniversary of the 1952 trip which is now established as a cornerstone of the Nanyang Style. Completed 5 years after the trip, the work is one of the finest examples of his oil in impasto paintings where the composition is highly schematised and distinct by the stylization of figures and other painted elements. Balinese Girls with Offerings is also one of the outstanding examples of his archetypal pictorial compositions of three women figures which he would paint with great success over the years. Cheong Soo Pieng himself recollects his experience of painting during the 1950s, arguably the most formative period of his artistic practice -

"(In painting I first) experimented a good deal in colour technique, and when I had evolved a technique which pleased me I tried it upon studies of the human form. I went to Bali on a sketching trip, and there I was fascinated by the scenery and by the Balinese women. I discovered that Balinese women are the ideal subject for me, and I made a good number of paintings, modern in feeling and to my own liking many of which I do not wish to sell."

Balinese Girls with Offerings was one such painting the artist produced. With the liberal use of paint on his canvas, the painting has a lush richness of colours and textures, reflective of the exuberance of the artist encountering Balinese culture. It is unmistakably a late 1950s work. The artist, Goh Tuck Hai, who was a student of Cheong Soo Pieng recalls that "Cheong Soo Pieng believed in applying oil paints exuberantly, and often emphasised this point in Hokkien, saying, 'The oils must be gao gao (thick).'"

Compositionally, the work is structured by a number of diagonals, giving an impression of movement, depth and life to the painted figures and offerings. The pyramid-shaped Balinese offerings is echoed in the overall placement of the figures, with the gazes of the two girls with eyes averted forming a third pyramid involving both the offerings and the figures themselves. Cheong Soo Pieng derived from his keen observation of the work of the post-impressionist Paul C?zanne.

And just like Cézanne, Cheong Soo Pieng's three Balinese girls are strongly modelled, characterised by the thick blakc outline of the figures. And yet he does not sacrifice the intensity and vibrancy of his colours, unlike many lesser accomplished painters who would not have been able to handle both elements. With works such as Balinese Girls with Offering, Cheong Soo Pieng tried to forge a new expression, seeking to capture the colours and charms of local life in a whole new pictorial language.

The purity of Balinese womenfolk is reflected in the larger cultural realm at which offerings (called banten in Balinese) such as the ones carried on the heads of the three painted figures are a central part of. The daily profusion of offerings capture an endearing image of Balinese life, painted by Cheong Soo Pieng in the present work. Cheong took great care to paint in realistic details the offerings with the symbolic colours of red, green and white representing a triumvirate of deities in Balinese religious life. The offerings, carried on the head because it is the most sacred part of the body, are gifts of pleasure to the gods, obligating the recipients in a circuit of mutual obligations and favours. The painting therefore underlines a key universal message about gifting and receiving, one relevant to contemporary society as much as in the 1950s Bali from which this picture derived.

The flattened treatment of the figures and the offerings in the picture is marked with a schematisation of the composition that is immediately attributed to Cheong Soo Pieng, especially also with the verve and sensitivity in which the artist has selected complementary colours. The ochre background is relieved by the blue of the sarong that two of the women figures are wearing. Red, found on the clothing of the figures, pull the viewer's attention to the figures themselves, and is reflected in the reds the artist used in rendering the offerings.

In Balinese Girls with Offering, Cheong Soo Pieng handles competently form, expression and colour, resulting in a supremely pleasing picture that establishes the artist's distinct contribution to the Nanyang Style, and affirm his lifelong regard and respect for the material culture, traditions and people of the Southeast Asian region.