Kok Yew Puah (1947 - 1999) was born in Klang, Selangor, Malaysia. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, Melbourne, Australia from 1966 - 1971, where he obtained a Diploma in Painting and a Master’s degree in Printmaking. After returning to Klang in early 1972, Puah held a solo exhibition later that year, showcasing his large colourful “hard-edged” abstract silkscreen prints. After leaving art for several years to run a family business, he forged a new practice as a figurative painter, producing some of the most honest, human and subjective representations of the country’s visual landscape of the late 1980s and 90s, captured through the immediate experience of his life in his hometown Klang as it transformed into an industrial hub. It is a portrait that speaks of anxieties about environmental damage, and the impact of rapid development particularly on younger generations, and their growing disconnection from history and culture. He passed away at the age of 51.