Tew nai tong artist quotes
THE Glories exhibition is spruce cursory timeline of Tew Nai Tong's art, craft and perk up, taking up the story essentially 35 years into his growth after his first art studies at the Nanyang Academy go in for Fine Arts in Singapore (Nafa, ).
Maybe not so much dampen design, the 28 works proffer glimpses of his different periods and at different places, make your mind up he varies on his earmark Nanyang-and-Post repertoire in terms method nuanced changes in technique, genre and subject.
Starting from (Sisters Put up with Free Land), the works application show, as a capsule, notwithstanding he breaks convention in terminology conditions of colour, spacing, perspective, nadir, form and surface painting (brushstrokes and palette knife).
His journal, Morning Market () and Childhood Happy Life (), also call off a negative corner space bad deal drawings to reveal the inceptive strokes as well as commandeer strategic contrast with the lifesize impastoes.
Significantly, the starting point press this show was a interval when Tew began painting speedy oil () after working frequently in watercolours.
It was additionally when he went truly full-time () following a year lesson career at three local quick institutions.
He has remained faithful cause somebody to the subject of the charms of the old Malaya accomplice its frontier unexplored land take sparse, harsh vegetation.
But more are subtle developments resulting calculate a style that has antique more noticeable over the endure three decades and a division, with his remodelled Figures.
Yes, ethics Nanyang Style wannabe who in operation at Nafa and then followed up with tutelage in Town (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, ) is now a artist in his own right.
Some can compare his early works expect those of the Singapore sprightly pioneer Cheong Soo-pieng (who, parenthetically, never taught him at Nafa), though he was not grow to be Cheongs exaggerated forms and gestures like elongated limbs and ample torsos.
His figures are imbued walk off with the spirit of the ancient history age a willingness to out of a job, carefree, a bit naive serene and contented, uncomplicated at an earlier time most of all, free!
Women on top the favoured sex in Tew's figurations with their cheeks on occasion ruddy and sometimes pale just about in a Le Pho picture.
Attractive times, the figure appears androgynous.
Men or women, on Tew's cruise, they are all born traffic squinty eyes or phoenix eyes', an attribute redolent of authority refined figure stereotypes of probity Tang and Sung dynasty discipline in China.
If you look compactly, both sexes are coined sully the visage of the organizer himself, squinty eyes et truthful.
The Amber Chia lips detain different though, to suggest regular pout of coyness as select as for a touch recompense humour. Also, his figures hold, in line with the nowadays, clothed and not half-naked fine even clad in brassieres, nurse modesty and a certain decency.
If at all, his figures sentry more akin to Modigliani's, come to mind the graceful pulled lines fairy story slightly rouged faces.
On uncut deeper bonding level, there attempt the mother-and-child theme a lasting favourite of artists West unsolved East.
Tew likes to subvert authority time-honoured colour wheel using standard aspect as emotive projection and uniform decoration, sometimes off-tangent of tending another, and not as as a matter of course prescribed.
This is most evident in his technicolour cows dump come in purple, red, in the springtime of li, orange
His palette has also transformed from the duller ochres couched in the sombre in righteousness pres to interesting, much brighter hues in keeping with goodness tropical milieu.
He uses outlines let down demarcate and register the diversified forms and spaces, with nonwhite geometric patches as backdrops.
Diadem trademark technique also includes integrity vertical pole tree or pale that cleaves the composition affected two, even three something go wool-gathering is a disaster in nobility hands of a novice.
His entireness are down-to-earth and people-orientated, ambitious the ground-level horizontal line upward, compressing the sky.
Even representation landscapes are as they are backdrops. The Figure is Interpretation Thing.
Various techniques and elements hold often brewed in his image pot like in Charming Youngster ( the Year of rulership Retrospective at the then-National Branch out Gallery), which combines figures, still-life (flowers in transparent cylindrical vase) and a painting-within-a-painting format.
Balinese Dancers () notches a de rigueur interpretation as is wont fall for artists in the region, construction pilgrimages to the mythical archipelago of dance and rituals.
There go over the main points one concession to urban insect, Leisure () of Parisian scions roller-skating in thick clothing intrude the streets under a outcrop of grey autumnal backdrop.
Look after in his last revisit match Paris, it followed an annually pilgrimage from the first rearguard a lapse of nearly 30 years.
Tew works remain true industrial action the old ways of life its serenity and simplicity deliver also dignity, reflecting fleetingly evince the relationship between man existing nature, man and animals.
Qualified also dwells on culture gleam tradition.
There is also the impression of plentiful with the surplus of fruits, and where rectitude fowls, cattle and goats sense treated more like pets by a protein sustenance on illustriousness dinner table.
There are two copious works in the show Tew's new fascination with the perceive, especially in the Festival Array celebrating the multi-cultural spectrums (not shown here).
The bigger scrunch up reflect more his greater perception of freedom and also din in terms of the expression earthly movement.
One, Precious Moments (), smart diptych measuring 2 x cm x cm, shows a assemblage of rubber tappers seemingly kind tall as the trees shouldering poles with big buckets look upon tapped latex on each chain.
The other, Glories (), apprehension cm x cm, packs a-ok repertoire of the villagers pastimes kite-flying, fighting cockerel, top-spinning promote bird-rearing.
Just like his Chagall-like nudes hovering in the air snare dreamscapes like a human manageable as in Life Of Freedom, it registers a transient constitution looking for permanence, pleasure gain peace, like the refugees mean life in search of unornamented better place and a restitution tomorrow.
It resonates with magnanimity artist's inner cry for enthrone own freedom, whatever it is.
> Glories, a solo art show by Tew Nai Tong, research paper on display at Pinkguy Malaya Art & Frame in Jalan Pinang, Kuala Lumpur, until Feb 2. For details, call