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Lot Essay
This season, Christie's is pleased to present a market-defining selection of modern and contemporary Chinese ink art by Singaporean artists. The roots of Chinese ink art in Singapore is located in the productive dialectic of tradition and modernity defined by a generation of pioneering Nanyang artists and the generation that followed. Hailing from various artistic traditions including the Lingnan school of ink painting and the influence of significant ink art practitioners such as Ren Bonian, Wu Changshi, Xu Beihong and Fan Chang Tien, the works of ink art practitioners like Tan Oe Pang, Lee Hock Moh and Chua Ek Kay extend the boundaries of innovation in contemporary ink art while retaining the essence of tradition.
Chua Ek Kay's Reflection (From the Lotus Pond series) (Lot 308) is an iconic contemporary treatise on the lotus flower and pond, one of traditional Chinese painting's central pictorial subject. A criss-crossing composition of deftly applied short brushstrokes, the present lot is a poetic integration of the image of the lotus pond, perhaps misty after a short of rain. Coming from one of the most immediately recognizable series in the artist's work, Reflection (From the Lotus Pond series) counts as one of Chua's most critically acclaimed picture which affirms his place of importance in Singapore ink art as an unceasing innovator.
Renowned for his meticulous orchid painting in the fine-lined gongbi style, Lee Hock Moh is one of the most singularly practitioner of ink art in Singapore today. Wings Beneath Their Wings (Lot 312) is a superlative flower-and-bird work painted on Japanese gold paper. Though the paper has a deep rich sheen, its uneven texture and inability to absorb ink well makes it one of the most challenging paper bases to work on. Thus presenting a formidable challenge to Lee, it slowed the artist's pace of painting down and required him to have an even greater mastery of his brush.
Pioneer Nanyang artist Chen Wen Hsi's Three Herons (Lot 307) and Two Squirrels; & Two Gibbons (Lot 306) paintings of the most definitive animal subjects favoured by the artist in his ink works. Three Herons is a superlative example of his heron paintings where Chen draws emphasis on the elongated bodily form of the herons feeding.
Two Squirrels; & Two Gibbons are two excellent examples of his squirrel and gibbon paintings, the anatomical accuracy and liveliness of the animals illustrating Chen's lifelong observation and love for his animal subjects.
Lim Tze Peng grew up in the kampongs of Singapore and was deeply affected by the large-scale modernisation and urban transformation of the city centre in 1980s Singapore. Singapore River (Lot 309) is an excellent work with the relatively dry ink brush to document the disappearing face of old Singapore, especially around the areas of Chinatown and the mouth of the Singapore River.
Like many Southeast Asian artists, Lim found great inspiration in the rich cultural life of Bali. At the Ceremony, Bali (Lot 310) shows his virtuosity with the ink brush, skillfully blending ink wash and the dry ink brush to create a compelling scene of a typical Balinese ritual ceremony.
Tan Oe Pang's The Old Shophouses - A Time Piece (Lot 311) is an elegiac visual prose on the theme of urban heritage and memory, reflecting the Singaporean artist's sensitivity to the urban morphology that changes vastly in the small island-state of Singapore. A witness to the constant flux brought by development, Tan finds solace and significance in shophouses and alleys that have been conserved and thus stand as bastion against the inevitable hand of change. The inscribed poem, a meticulously composed poem the artist terms in the New Tang style (xin tangren shi), reveals his thoughts on the painted picture:
Many a year at different sites and different
balconies, those withered away and those still
alive went over the same scrolls.
Great changes brought by time, the same old
Alley witnesses, again, crimson sun-set glow
Will illuminate in future years
Chua Ek Kay's Reflection (From the Lotus Pond series) (Lot 308) is an iconic contemporary treatise on the lotus flower and pond, one of traditional Chinese painting's central pictorial subject. A criss-crossing composition of deftly applied short brushstrokes, the present lot is a poetic integration of the image of the lotus pond, perhaps misty after a short of rain. Coming from one of the most immediately recognizable series in the artist's work, Reflection (From the Lotus Pond series) counts as one of Chua's most critically acclaimed picture which affirms his place of importance in Singapore ink art as an unceasing innovator.
Renowned for his meticulous orchid painting in the fine-lined gongbi style, Lee Hock Moh is one of the most singularly practitioner of ink art in Singapore today. Wings Beneath Their Wings (Lot 312) is a superlative flower-and-bird work painted on Japanese gold paper. Though the paper has a deep rich sheen, its uneven texture and inability to absorb ink well makes it one of the most challenging paper bases to work on. Thus presenting a formidable challenge to Lee, it slowed the artist's pace of painting down and required him to have an even greater mastery of his brush.
Pioneer Nanyang artist Chen Wen Hsi's Three Herons (Lot 307) and Two Squirrels; & Two Gibbons (Lot 306) paintings of the most definitive animal subjects favoured by the artist in his ink works. Three Herons is a superlative example of his heron paintings where Chen draws emphasis on the elongated bodily form of the herons feeding.
Two Squirrels; & Two Gibbons are two excellent examples of his squirrel and gibbon paintings, the anatomical accuracy and liveliness of the animals illustrating Chen's lifelong observation and love for his animal subjects.
Lim Tze Peng grew up in the kampongs of Singapore and was deeply affected by the large-scale modernisation and urban transformation of the city centre in 1980s Singapore. Singapore River (Lot 309) is an excellent work with the relatively dry ink brush to document the disappearing face of old Singapore, especially around the areas of Chinatown and the mouth of the Singapore River.
Like many Southeast Asian artists, Lim found great inspiration in the rich cultural life of Bali. At the Ceremony, Bali (Lot 310) shows his virtuosity with the ink brush, skillfully blending ink wash and the dry ink brush to create a compelling scene of a typical Balinese ritual ceremony.
Tan Oe Pang's The Old Shophouses - A Time Piece (Lot 311) is an elegiac visual prose on the theme of urban heritage and memory, reflecting the Singaporean artist's sensitivity to the urban morphology that changes vastly in the small island-state of Singapore. A witness to the constant flux brought by development, Tan finds solace and significance in shophouses and alleys that have been conserved and thus stand as bastion against the inevitable hand of change. The inscribed poem, a meticulously composed poem the artist terms in the New Tang style (xin tangren shi), reveals his thoughts on the painted picture:
Many a year at different sites and different
balconies, those withered away and those still
alive went over the same scrolls.
Great changes brought by time, the same old
Alley witnesses, again, crimson sun-set glow
Will illuminate in future years