Artist Detail | Ilham Gallery
Lai Loong Sung
1944, Malaysia
Lai Loong Sung
1944, Malaysia

Lai Loong Sung (b. 1944, Selangor, Malaysia) is best known for his black-and-white works that marry the styles and techniques of woodcut, Chinese ink painting, and drawing. Lai graduated from the Kuala Lumpur College of Art in 1970, where he taught as a lecturer for ten years. During this period, Lai worked simultaneously for a local daily newspaper that offered short and flexible working hours for the artist to develop his artistic practice. The job exposed him constantly to the troubling state of war and conflict that marked the seventies, and in realising the inadequacies of his artistic responses, he travelled to a refugee camp near the Thai-Cambodian border during the eighties to witness the war firsthand. The experience inspired the artist to create several woodcut prints and oil paintings, forming his most extensive series of works exploring the topic of war and conflict of the period. Lai’s subsequent works continue to explore themes of daily life and its accompanying trials and tribulations. His first solo exhibition was held in Kuala Lumpur in 1977, with further solo exhibitions held in Johor, Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, and China. His works have been exhibited in Italy, Australia and Taiwan.