Wong Hoy Cheong - Old Tale Retold

ADD TO ALBUMS

Old Tale Retold

1986

A versatile, multi-disciplinary artist, the last few decades of Wong Hoy Cheong’s career show a steady disembarkation from analogue works to the digital. His paintings included in this exhibition are among the paintings he produced soon after his return to Malaysia from his studies in the U.S. His influences then included Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Hans Hoffman. On his paintings, Wong reflected, “I was trying to nurture a transplanted element [painting] in a Malaysian context and failed.” He turned to collaborative and interactive mediums he felt were closer to the Malaysian context. Observers will note, however, how the two paintings included in this exhibition capture his unwavering passion for activism and his engagement with historical, political, and social influence, regardless of mediums. Both The Grass Eater and Old Tale Retold capture his deliberate choice of using the figurative as an act of rebellion, resisting abstraction in his imagery for greater political and social engagement.

Details

Medium:

Oil on canvas

Dimension:

164 x 274 cm

Date:

1986

Credit Line:

Collection of ILHAM Foundation

About Wong Hoy Cheong

Wong was born in 1960 in Penang, and received a BA in literature from Brandeis University, Massachusetts, in 1982, and an M.Ed. from Harvard University in 1984. In 1986, he received an MFA in painting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Wong’s work challenges audiences to reconsider notions of ethnicity, indigeneity, colonialism, marginalised histories and community. He has exhibited widely, including at the Singapore Art Museum (2011); Eslite Gallery, Taipei (2010); the Lyon Biennale (2009); and National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2004 and 1996). He was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency Fellowship (2011), was named one of the ten art and culture Leaders of the Next Millennium by Asiaweek (1999) and Cornell University has named a scholarship after him for his work as an educator (1993).

MORE INFO

Share