Cheong Soo Pieng: A man for all seasons

MOUNTED by artcommune gallery, the current retrospective survey of pioneer Singapore artist Cheong Soo Pieng makes clear not just the sustained quality of his ink works created from 1949 to 1983, but also his impressive ability to adopt and adapt new aesthetics and techniques throughout his life.

By the time he moved from China to Singapore in 1946, the 29-year-old Cheong was already a sophisticated visual thinker who had mastered a suite of techniques from his years of studying art in Xiamen and Shanghai. But that didn't stop him from opening his eyes and adapting his paintbrush and palette to capture the sights and scenes of his new home in Southeast Asia.

In the 1950s, he would employ Chinese scroll pictorial traditions to depict a herd of cattle in a kampong, or ordinary people weaving between wooden houses on planked walkways, or simply a Balinese woman in repose.

He could even take those same environs and figures, and interpret them in the Cubist traditions popularised by Braque and Picasso.

By the 1970s, he was inspired by the Indonesian puppetry art of wayang kulit and the modernist perspectives of Modigliani and Giacometti to develop what is now regarded as his trademark figural style - ordinary people painted with slim elongated bodies, thick pouty lips and almond-shaped eyes.

[scald=242200:article_inline_image]

Cheong-Soo-Pieng-Fishing-Village-1965-Chinese-ink-and-colour-on-paper-44.4-x-92.8-cm-1536x720.jpg

Cheong-Soo-Pieng-Fishing-Village-1965-Chinese-ink-and-colour-on-paper-44.4-x-92.8-cm-1536x720.jpg

[scald=242200:article_inline_image] Cheong-Soo-Pieng-Fishing-Village-1965-Chinese-ink-and-colour-on-paper-44.4-x-92.8-cm-1536x720.jpg

[scald=242200:article_inline_image]

Cheong-Soo-Pieng-Fishing-Village-1965-Chinese-ink-and-colour-on-paper-44.4-x-92.8-cm-1536x720.jpg

Cheong-Soo-Pieng-Fishing-Village-1965-Chinese-ink-and-colour-on-paper-44.4-x-92.8-cm-1536x720.jpg

Cheong-Soo-Pieng-Fishing-Village-1965-Chinese-ink-and-colour-on-paper-44.4-x-92.8-cm-1536x720.jpg

Regardless of the pictorial representation, Cheong always employed ink beautifully, capturing the earthy tropical characteristics of South-east Asia in ways that had never been done before. It was Cheong's tribute to his new home, and also a way of understanding and settling into it.

The exhibition titled Tonalities: The Ink Works of Cheong Soo Pieng runs at Helutrans in Tanjong Pagar Distripark and features over 100 ink exhibits showcasing different parts of his career, including never-before-seen works from the few years preceding his death in 1983.

Ho Sou Ping, director of artcommune, says, "This is the first exhibition to focus entirely on Cheong's ink oeuvre. Many of the works - loaned from a diverse group of collectors - are on public exhibit for the first time, allowing us to flesh out a comprehensive narrative arc that relates the distinct periods and developments in his journey."

One could gaze at his portraits of Dayak people made during his longhouse stay in Borneo in 1959, then stroll to the next room to be surprised by the lyrical abstract style (much like Zao Wou-Ki's) that Cheong took to during his European trip in 1962 and 1963.

They feel like two sets of works created by an entirely different person, and each one is distinctively beautiful.

• Tonalities: The Ink Works of Cheong Soo Pieng by artcommune gallery runs at Helutrans in Tanjong Pagar Distripark from now till June 13, daily from 12 noon to 7pm. Admission is free.