Strokes Of Life The Art Of Chen Chong Swee

Chen Chong Swee is acknowledged as one of the earliest artists to have explored depicting Southeast Asian scenes within the medium of traditional Chinese ink painting. Published on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition at National Gallery Singapore, this catalogue bears witness to Chen’s explorations across the mediums of ink and oil, the influence his immediate surroundings had on his art, and his insistence, above all, that it was impossible to divorce art from life. Full-colour image plates, newly commissioned essays and a biographical timeline of the artist within the catalogue flesh out the inflections of Chen’s oeuvre.

Significant achievements in art notwithstanding, Chen Chong Swee was also a prolific, vivid essayist. His writings--collated here and also translated into English for the first time--range from the value of art education to the responsibilities of the art community, and are imbued with ardour and vigorous clarity. This compilation provides a compelling contribution to our understanding of the artist as a man of unwavering focus, whose thoughts cleaved to the advancement of art.

Drawing mainly on advertisements and comics in Chinese newspapers, Singaporean scholar and educator Yeo Mang Thong demonstrates how Singapore was an important hub for artists who travelled to and lived in Singapore. Yeo’s research features amongst other things essays on sojourning artists, and fills a gap in scholarship on the pre-war visual arts scene in Singapore. Originally in Chinese, this English translation aims to bring his research to a broader audience.

Developed as an exploratory study of artworks by artists of Singapore and Malaysia, Retrospective attempts to account for contemporary artworks that engage with history. These are artworks that reference past events or narratives, of the nation and its art. Through the examination of a selection of artworks produced between 1990 and 2012, Retrospective is both an attribution and an analysis of a historiographical aesthetic within contemporary art practice. It considers that, by their method and in their assembly, these artworks perform more than a representation of a historical past. Instead, they confront history and its production, laying bare the nature and designs of the historical project via their aesthetic project. Positing an interdisciplinary approach as necessary for understanding the historiographical as aesthetic, Retrospective considers not only historical and aesthetic perspectives, but also the philosophical, by way of ontology, in order to broaden its exposition beyond the convention of historical and contextual interpretation of art. Yet, in associating these artworks with a historiographical aesthetic, this exposition may be regarded as a historiographical exercise in itself, affirming the significance of these artworks for the history of Singapore and Malaysia. In short, which history rarely is, Retrospective is about the art of historicisation and the historicisation of art.

"The essays in volume one examine his contributions and the influence of diverse cultural and historical resources in his paintings. There are also biographical portraits by family and former students. The works in the exhibition are showcased in 120 colour plates. Volume two, contained in the enclosed CDR, consists of the essays in volume one in Chinese, historical publications and relevant images. There are eight essays by Yeh Chi Wei written and published between 1960 and 1972. 18 articles by various writers on Yeh Chi Wei and the Ten Men Group, written and published between 1961 and 2010, have also been reprinted. All these essays, articles and publications are accompanied by new English translations. Past exhibition catalogues on Yeh and the Ten Men artists have also been reproduced. Volume two includes images of artefacts and books from the artist's own collections"--P. 4 of cover.