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Lot Essay
Born in Guangdong, Chua Ek Kay migrated to Singapore in the 1950s where he pioneered a signature style of spontaneous modernist brushwork, derived from the traditional Shanghai school ink painting of his teacher Fan Chang Tien. Chua is best known for his Lotus Pond Series, where he renders the impression and essence of the lotus flowers within quick, truncated calligraphic strokes - essentially becoming to Chinese ink painting, what Monet was to European Impressionism, by capturing the spirit and vitality of abundant nature and infusing it with a meditative, minimalistic quality; grasped through a viewer's intuition rather than by full physical definition.
Painted in 2006, The Season of Seagulls (Lot 543) exemplifies the artist's mastery in abstract landscape brush painting, with a combination of free flowing wet and dry brushwork, heavy and light dot impressions and ink splashes. The flight of seagulls is rendered in an abstract fashion by dancing shimmering brushstrokes overlaid on a light brown wash and the white of the paper representing nature's elements of sky, earth and water.
On the compositional format of the Seagull series of works, Chua Ek Kay explains that "(t)he form of the Australian landscape also inspired me to adopt a new, open approach to my composition allowing me to move away from the confines of the traditional format".
View of an Anhui Garden (Lot 544) reveals a new aspect to Chua's idiosyncratic 'street scene' paintings. Usually portraying alleyways and streets in his home land, Singapore, here Chua has grasped the identity of traditional abodes in Anhui, inspired by his visits to various cities in China. The work depicts the rustic tiled roofs and plain whitewashed walls of the dwellings usually seen along the riverbanks which often feature enclosed gardens.
Painted in 2006, The Season of Seagulls (Lot 543) exemplifies the artist's mastery in abstract landscape brush painting, with a combination of free flowing wet and dry brushwork, heavy and light dot impressions and ink splashes. The flight of seagulls is rendered in an abstract fashion by dancing shimmering brushstrokes overlaid on a light brown wash and the white of the paper representing nature's elements of sky, earth and water.
On the compositional format of the Seagull series of works, Chua Ek Kay explains that "(t)he form of the Australian landscape also inspired me to adopt a new, open approach to my composition allowing me to move away from the confines of the traditional format".
View of an Anhui Garden (Lot 544) reveals a new aspect to Chua's idiosyncratic 'street scene' paintings. Usually portraying alleyways and streets in his home land, Singapore, here Chua has grasped the identity of traditional abodes in Anhui, inspired by his visits to various cities in China. The work depicts the rustic tiled roofs and plain whitewashed walls of the dwellings usually seen along the riverbanks which often feature enclosed gardens.